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HOUSE-PAINTING, 



OARRIAGE-PAINTING 



AND 



GRAINING. 



WITAT TO BO, AND HO W TO DO IT. 



BY 



JOHN W. MASURY. 



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NEW YORK: 
D. APPLETO:^^ AND COMPANY, 

1, 3, AND 5 BOND STEEET. 

1881. 



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COPYRIGHT BY 

JCIIN W. MASURY, 

1881. 



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PEEFACE 



The use of i)aints throughout the older and more civil- 
ized portions of our country is almost as common as is the 
use of sheltering roofs and windowed dwellings. Of the 
chemical properties and composition of these paints as little 
is known — as a rule — ^by those whose special calling and 
trade it is to apply the same, as is known of the doctrines 
of Confucius or of Scandinavian mythology. Nor, except 
to gratify or satisfy a thirst for knowledge, is it necessary 
that the painter who applies the successive coats of paint 
should be acquainted with the processes whereby animal, 
mineral, and vegetable substances are converted into pig- 
ments ; but it is a matter of prime importance that the 
painter and his employer both shall know what materials 
and what processes will bring about the best results with 
a given expenditure of time and money. 

There are certain axioms pertaining to paints and their 
uses which can or may be easily learned ; and which 
should be taken to heart by all who have houses to be 
painted, as well as by those whose business or occupation it 
is to procure, or recoramend, or apply the paint. 



4 PREFACE. 

The task of presenting this matter, so as to bring its 
teachings within the comprehension of all, is beset with 
serious difficulties. To treat a technical subject without 
the help of the technicalities thereto belonging, is a task 
the difficulties of which can be appreciated only by those 
who have attempted it. To make plain our meaning, the 
following example is offered : Speaking of the different 
superficial appearances produced by the various modes or 
processes common in house-jDainting, we speak of a flat 
surface in contradistinction to a glossy or shiny surface. 
Now, to the average reader this word flat has no such sig- 
nificance, and will not, per se, convey the idea sought to 
be impressed. To the most ignorant painter-by-trade, 
however, the word in question is the one of all most fit to 
be used. This word, so simple to the initiated, is ^^ Greek" 
to the learned and unlearned alike. Addressing the edu- 
cated, we make ourselves to be understood by the use of 
scientific terms, which convey the same ideas to all learned 
people, of whatever nation, or tribe, or kindred. We speak 
to the scholar of chloride of sodium ; and the words call to 
his mind a wonderful combination and condensation of 
chlorine gas with its metallic base. Its uses he knows from 
every-day experience. Its composition, because he com- 
mands the language of chemical science. To the unlearned 
the word '' salt " has no other significance than its applica- 
tion to culinary purposes and the preservation of viands. 
To the learned this simple word suggests ten thousand 
compounds, resulting from the chemical combination of 
gases and other elementary substances. Addressing an 



PREFACE. 5 

audience so mixed and inclusive, we are at a loss to know 
what signs to use which shall not appear simple to the 
learned, and puerile and contemptible to the initiated. Tlie 
learned may say: *^ While confessing entire ignorance of 
the technicalities of your subject, we would nevertheless be 
taught in language suited to our scholarly comprehen- 
sion. It is an insult to our intelligence to address us in 
terms suited to the capacity of children or the ignorant vul- 
gar." These remarks are made in excuse of any short- 
coming in this respect, which may appear in the volume to 
which this is the preface. We propose to make this book 
entirely practical — so plain, indeed, ^Hhat the wayfaring 
man, though a fool, need not err therein " ; so comprehen- 
sive that the householder having in hand the smallest — or 
the largest — job of painting, may so proceed in the initiatory 
steps as to secure in the end the best results with the least 
expenditure of means. When we subject ourselves to the 
inconveniences of a repainting of our domiciles, with all 
the attendant discomforts, we ought to be assured that the 
result will be all that can possibly be included in the opera- 
tion. We should be assured of beauty, economy, durabil- 
ity, and health, so far as painting can include these most 
desirable objects. 

That there exists a desire for knowledge in the matter 
of house-painting, we know from the fact that our little 
volume entitled " How shall we Paint ? " and published in 
1868, has passed through many editions, and is yet in de- 
mand. Experience has shown that the volume alluded to 
was written.under a«mistaken assumption. It assumed too 



6 PREFACE. 

mucli knowledge on the part of the reader, and was there- 
fore not sufficiently practical. It taught, indeed ; but it 
taught theories rather than processes. 

It is a misfortune that the names of colors are to such 
an extent arbitrary, indefinite. The employment of signs 
so indeterminate as are the names of colors and tints, en- 
hances the difficulties of imparting information, and renders 
necessary the use of words which have too often only local 
meanings. The word red, for exami^le, signifies to one mind 
old red sandstone ; to another, the color of bricks ; and so 
on, through the whole range of tones wherein the red ray of 
light is in any degree perceptible. The attempt will be 
made in the following treatise to associate the names of 
colors with such flowers, fruits, and other familiar objects 
as are supposed to present the best examples of the purest 
tones of the various respective colors. 

The subject is one which comes home to us all, and on 
which, in no small degree, depend our comfort, our pleas- 
ure, and our health. If house-painting consisted of merely 
covering the wood- work of a dwelling with one or more 
coats of white paint, to speak of it as a fine art would 
hardly be justifiable ; but, so far is such from being the 
case, that, to conduct successfully the business of painting 
in our cities and larger towns, requires the exercise of those 
faculties which, in general acceptation, are supposed to dis- 
tinguish the artist from the mechanic. An eye prompt by 
nature and education to distinguish the nice gradations of 
colors and tints — and the faculty so to arrange and dispose 
them as shall best harmonize them with each other, and 



PREFACE. 7 

with the surroundings — are indispensable requisites in the 
house-painter of the present day. Happily, the day of dead 
whites for the interiors of our dwellings has passed by — let 
us hope, not to return. It was a kind of Puritanism in 
painting, for which there was no warrant in Nature, which, 
in such matters, should in a measure be our teacher and 
guide. But the subject must not be studied only in its 
aesthetic aspect ; not alone as adding beauty and comeliness 
to our homes ; but in its economical features, as most im- 
portant in preserving wood from the action of the weather 
forces — in excluding dampness and arresting moldiness 
and decay. It is, too, highly promotive of cleanliness, 
which has been said by good authority to be next to godli- 
ness, and to many it affords the best outward sign of the 
advance of the people in the path of civilization ; for, just 
in proportion as the houses, fences, and out-buildings of 
a community are painted, will be inferred the advance of 
that people in wealth, literature, home comforts ; in short, 
all the consequences and refining influences of a high civ- 
ilization. That this is true, of our own country at leasfc, 
appeal is made to those who have traveled much, and have 
thereby acquired the experience necessary to the forming 
of a correct conclusion. Indeed, one feels as he leaves be- 
hind him the freshly painted houses and lattice fences of 
the older and more thrifty portions of our land, and finds 
himself surrounded by the evidences of a ruder cultivation, 
that this condition is owing in a greater or less degree to 
the absence of the house-painter and his stock of paints. 
A knowledge of thd materials employed in the prosecution 



8 PREFACE. 

of any trade, profession, or calling, their source, origin, na- 
ture, effects, and properties, and the mode and manner in 
which they are influenced by the invisible forces of Nature, 
ever active in the great law of change, would seem to be a 
necessary concomitant of success. The materials used by 
the painter and colorist are more directly the result of 
chemical research and discovery than are those of other 
trades and callings ; and no amount of observation and 
study, without the assistance of written explanations, will 
give the clew to their composition and mode of production. 
The wood which the carpenter fashions into shapes of util- 
ity and beauty, bears in its grain the story of its growth. 
The nails which he uses are as familiar as household words, 
and of themselves suggest the mechanical force which fash- 
ioned them. But the materials which reflect to the eye the 
thousand tints and colors which the painter disposes with 
cunning hand give no sign of the secret of their origin. 
They may be simple or compound substances wrought out 
in Nature's vast laboratory, or the result of the highest 
scientific skill. The aim of the writer has been to give, in 
as brief a form as possible, the mode of operation in the 
production of the factitious pigments used in house-paint- 
ing, and to explain the origin and properties of those which 
are of Nature's own production. There is nothing in do- 
mestic or out-door life so common, so constantly before our 
eyes, as painted surfaces ; yet, outside the ranks of those 
who profess the art of painting, there prevails a general 
ignorance of the nature and composition of paints, and of 
the proper and economical use of the same. Owing to what 



PREFACE. 9 

the writer must call a defect in our system of education, 
not only in our common schools, but in the higher institu- 
tions of learning, no effort is made to educate the percep- 
tive faculties in the discrimination of colors, or in their 
harmonious combination and arrangement. Such teaching 
is certainly worthy the attention of those to whom we com- 
mit the instruction of our children, and the neglect of it is 
a national misfortune. Hoping to create an interest in 
this important subject, the writer is induced to offer this 
little book to the public, and would modestly commend it 
not only to the trade, but also to the general reader, with 
the belief that there are but few who may not find some 
instruction in its pages. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I. — ColOes and their TJsEa . . , .13 

II. — Light and Color ..... 18 

III. — Ornamenting with Colors . . . .23 

IV. — Paints: Their Origin and Sources . . 81 

V. — Mixing Paints and Colors . . . .35 

VI. — Mixing Paints and Colors (Continued) . 40 

VII. — Paint as affected by Atmospheric Agencies . 48 

VIII. — Exterior House -Painting ... 52 

IX. — New System of Interior House-Painting . . 71 

X. — Whitewashing, or coloring Walls and Ceilings 

— CALLED KaLSOMINING .... 83 

XI. — Paris-Green as a Pigment . . . .96 
XII. — Graining as a Fine Art. . . . 113 
XIII. — Painted Imitation of Colored Woods, techni- 
cally CALLED Graining . . . .116 
XIV. — Ground and Graining Colors . . . 123 
XV. — Tools required for Graining . . .125 
XVI.— Light-Oak Graining . . . . 129 
XVIL— Dark-Oak Graining . . . . .143 
XVIIL— Black-Walnut Graining. . . .147 
XIX. — Ash Graining . . . , . .154 
XX. — Chestnut Graining .... 157 



12 CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XXI. — New System of Geainino on Unpainted 

Pine-Wood Suefaces .... 159 

XXII. — Distempee-Geaining . . . .163 

XXIII.— Bied's-E YE Maple . . . . .165 

XXiy. — Mahogany Geaining . . . .169 

XXV.— Rosewood Geaining . . . .172 

XXVI. — Satinwood Geaining . . . . 174 

XXVII. — Black- Walnut Geaining in Distempee. . 176 

XXVIII. — Light-Oak Geaining in Distempee . . 179 

XXIX.— Vaenisuing . . . . .181 

XXX. — Geneeal Eemaeks . . . .185 

XXXI. — How to Paint a Caeeiage . . .195 

XXXII. — Peepaeation of the Sueface . . 198 

XXXIII. — Caeeiage- Vaenishing .... 205 

XXXIV.— The New Method . . . .211 

XXXV. — Painting and Vaenishing . . .217 

XXXVI. — Evils and theie Remedies . . . 220 

XXXVII. — Cleaving of Vaenish feom the Coloe . . 224 

XXXVIII. — How to get the Best Results . . 229 

XXXIX. — Adulteeation and Waste . . . 235 

XL. — The Use of Ready-Geound Coloes . . 238 

XLI. — How to make the Best Job in Black . . 242 



HOUSE-PAINTING, CARRIAGE-PAINTING, 
AND GRAINING. 



CHAPTER I. 



COLOKS AKD THEIR USES. 



The use of colors for decoratiA^e and ornamental pur- 
poses antedates written history, and tliey Avere possibly em- 
ployed by aboriginal man in or for the adornment of his per- 
son. To trace the progress of this fine art from its incip- 
iency were an impossible task, because of the non-existence 
of historic records. Milton, the blind poet, with fine poetic 
frenzy, describes the gorgeous flower mosaics which glori- 
fied the nuptial bower in Eden's garden. So-called sacred 
books— according to Moses — tell us that long ago Tyre was 
famed among the nations of the earth for the skill of her 
workmen in gold and colors and broidery ; and that Huram, 
the King of Tyre, did send to Solomon, the ncw-macle King 
of Israel (even as beforetime he had sent to David cedar 
wood, or trees, whereof and wherewith the said David did 
build him a dwelliiig-house), a son of a woman of the 



14 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE FAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

daughters of -Dan, whose father was a Tyrian man, skillful 
in decorating in gold and silver and brass and iron, and in 
crimson and purple and gold, as also in embroidery and in 
fine linen. An accomplished artist was this man of Tyre ! 

We may suppose that during the earlier i^eriod of man's 
development the employment of color for decorative and 
ornamental purposes was confined mostly to the temples of 
worship and to the palaces and tombs of kings ; and, more- 
over, that colors had a significance beyond mere harmonious 
arrangement, and were used emblematically in the Egyp- 
tian, Jewish, and other pagan modes of worship. The en- 
during materials which monumentally record the glory of 
Egyptian civilization were, we suppose, colored to symbol- 
ize the mysteries of their strange and, to us, incomprehen- 
sible religion. And so through — as we know them — all 
succeeding forms and changes and religious inventions, 
until the use of color for sacred and sacerdotal purposes 
seemed to have attained its highest reach with the culmi- 
nating temporal power of the Komish Church. We may 
suppose that there was a period in man's history when the 
average mind was educated in a knowledge of color-har- 
mony. We know there was and is a time where in our 
civilization there exists an almost entire ignorance of and 
indifference to this subject, and a prevailing inability to 
discern harmony and distinguish discords in compositions 
of color. 

The protest of Luther and his compeers against what 
they deemed errors in the Church, included more than the 
diversion of a portion of the religious thought of the so- 



, COLORS AND THEIR USES. 15 

called Christian world from the channel through which it 
had been accustomed to flow. The change in the spirit of 
those who followed in the footsteps of the protesters was 
radical and entire. The institution, founded by St. Peter, 
the repository of God's power on earth, the object of ex- 
tremest veneration theretofore, on the part of those truly 
religious, who folloAved Luther out, became the thing ab- 
horrent, the standing offense against the God of Abraham, 
the Antichrist, the devil's engine for the perversion of hu- 
man souls. 

All of art in painting, and sculpture, and architecture, 
which the Church had gathered and almost monopolized — 
the emblem of the cross, the Virgin Mother, the stained 
windows, the softened light of cathedral and minster — 
were become idols in the new light of Luther and his 
friends, and everything which savored of the Church was 
banished and put far away. Out of this, we may assume, 
grew that indisposition to, and consequent ignorance of, 
color-harmony, which has ever been the a<3Companiment of 
Protestant Puritanism. 

Coming down to our own time, and looking back to the 
Massachusetts Bay Colony, we may find the cause of our 
own want of taste and our indifference to the use of colors 
for decorative and ornamental purposes. The rigid teach- 
ings of the semi-theocracy of the Puritan Commonwealth 
were far-reaching in extent, wonderful in influence, and 
are most difficult to trace. They crop out to-day among 
all the forms and features of our diversified society and 
civilization. Modified by the influx of immigration, by 



16 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

eyer-increasing contact with tlie world, by accumulation of 
wealth and its consequent refinement and luxurious ten- 
dencies, they yet bear more or less of the rigidity and se- 
verity of their original features. To these teachings may 
be traced the entire indifference to the use of colors for 
decorative and ornamental purposes, and the inability to 
distinguish color-harmony, which has heretofore univer- 
sally prevailed, and which may be said now generally to 
prevail, among us as a people. With those Puritan Fathers 
a knowledge of the simple names of colors was a frivolity, 
if not a sin, and the use of colors for church purposes 
would have been looked upon as a crime little less heinous 
than image-worship. Scarlet with them was significant of 
the *^ woman of Babylon" — she who sat upon the seven 
hills, drunken with the blood of saints. Purple suggested 
pagan idolatry, and red the right hand of wrath ! Colors, 
either as ornaments or emblems, could have no place in 
their purely intellectual and ideal faith. To have rendered 
their places of worship attractive by ornamentation would 
have given the lie to their whole profession. The rigid 
morality of those God-fearing ascetics found proper and 
fitting expression in the rectangular shelters, under the 
wooden roofs of which they assembled to worship ^Mn spirit 
and in truth," so far as they were conscious of their own 
spiritual impulses. May we not rejoice that the materials 
which architecturally symbolized the simplicity of their re- 
ligion were not enduring as monumental brass or marble ? 
In tracing backward the cause of our want of taste and our 
indifference to the use of colors, it seems not necessary to 



COLORS AND THEIR USES. I7 

go beyond the period of that settlement and that civiliza- 
tion which has given the key-note to the moral and intel- 
lectual tone of succeeding generations. 

Be it a matter to deplore, or to rejoice at, it is not to be 
denied that Puritanism, as a system, with its severe morals 
and its simple tastes, has become a thing of the past. We 
find ourselves now npon the other road. The paintless 
structures which were the vanity of our severe predeces- 
sors, gave place to the diluted Puritanism of white and 
green. Let us congratulate ourselves that the latter dis- 
cordant combination has run its course, and has given 
place to a disposition, at least, to color the exteriors of our 
dwelling-places with some regard to harmony and the gen- 
eral fitness of things. Encouraging as is the partial re- 
covery from the white-and-green mania, there is much yet 
to be done in educating the people as to what colors and 
tones of color, what tints and shades, may properly be 
displayed in the coloristic decoration of domestic archi- 
tecture. 



CHAPTER II. 



LIGHT AND. COLOR. 



Color is an attribute of light. In other phrase, color 
belongs to light, and in the absence of light all objects are 
black. The mind becomes conscious of color because of 
the eye, and without that organ there can be no intelligent 
comprehension of the sensation which color causes. To 
assert that light was made for the eye, or that the eye was 
made for light, might possibly give rise to cavil ; but the 
ultra-caviler will hardly deny the adaptability of each to 
the other. 

As no two material objects can occupy the same space 
at the same time, so no two persons can view the same 
object under exactly similar conditions at the same mo- 
ment ; and it is doubtful if an object is ever seen twice by 
any one beholder under exactly like conditions of time, 
place, and circumstance. This construction may cause us 
to take a charitable view of many differences of opinion as 
to the merits or demerits of works of art or of impressions 
produced by natural phenomena, which would otherwise be 



LIGHT AND COLOR. 19 

charged to stubbornness, or captiousness, or perhaps to 
willful blindness. This diversity, however, must not lead 
us to the conclusion that we can arrive at no positive 
knowledge of the effects produced on the general mind by 
certain combinations and contrasts of colors and of light 
and shade. Notwithstanding the fact that the visual or- 
gans of many people are so imperfect that the possessors 
can not distinguish green from red, it can not reasonably 
be denied that the sensation produced by the sight of these 
colors is, as a rule, identical among all whose perceptive 
faculties are ordinarily susceptible to color impressions. 
Chevreul, in his work on ^^Laws of Contrast of Colors" 
(page 198, English translation), says : *^ As soon as I felt the 
necessity of this study, my first care was to discover whether 
I saw colors as the generality of persons see them. I was 
soon perfectly convinced that I did." This, it will be seen, 
was a very important matter about which to come to a de- 
cision, for the reason that time spent in teaching the laws 
which govern color contrasts, and discords and harmony, 
would be worse than wasted if, in such matters, every man 
was to be '^a law unto himself." There have been, and 
are, and always will be, perhaps, individuals who claim that 
in all questions of taste there is no room for dispute, and 
that in such matters nobody has the right or the calling to 
propound laws for others. Such protesters are, fortunately, 
not the rule but the exception, and the fact still remains 
that the generality of persons see colors as Chevreul says 
he saw them. Upon this assumption, laws have been pro- 
pounded, from time to time, which are supposed to be in 



20 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

accordance with Nature's requirements in tlie disposition of 
colors in coloristic decoration and ornamentation. 

In treating the question of color-harmony, formidable 
difficulties are met with, and are hard to oyercome, for the 
reason that all the natural laws relating thereto are so altered 
and modified by conditions and circumstances that they be- 
come liable to endless interpretations. It is a fixed and arbi- 
trary natural law in color-harmony that gold harmonizes 
with and is pleasing to the eye in combination or contrast 
with all colors and tints positive and neutral. Not equally 
so with all : gold is better with scarlet, or crimson, or pur- 
ple, than with olive-green or greenish-drab, but it can not 
be made to discord with any color. Proportion and place, 
too, are powerful influences in the combination of colors : 
a color used in a composition in certain proportions will be 
disagreeable, and decrease the good efl'ect of all ; whereas, 
had the same color been in proper proportion to its neigh- 
bors, it would have heightened the good effect of all. So 
much, indeed, depends upon proportion, that disagreeable 
results will follow from any offense against these conditions. 
Rules may be given for putting together certain colors, so 
as to produce harmony and avoid discords, but no rule can 
be given for the relative proportions which these colors 
must bear to each other. A few general rules, indeed, may 
be laid down, such as follow : With blue and white, the 
white should be in excess, as a white ground with blue 
spots would have a more pleasing effect than a blue ground 
with white spots. So with red and white ; the white 
should be in excess, and the remarks as to blue and white 



LIGHT AND COLOR. 21 

are equally pertinent as to red and white. Blue and red 
and yellow make perfect harmony in combination ; yet 
they are not as pleasing when the yellow shows in the same 
quantity as the other colors. When these colors are pre- 
sented together, the blue should be first in quantity, the 
red next, and lastly the yellow. Of course, it is difficult to 
determine the exact quantity of each, and hence arises the 
hopelessness of the task of educating one in this art whose 
perceptive faculties are naturally deficient in this most 
important requirement ; and one may almost as well be 
color-blind as to be without the ability to distinguish in- 
tuitively what are and what are not proper proportions. 
Few persons are color-blind to the extent of not experi- 
encing the disagreeable effect of placing side by side, in 
direct contact, alternate stripes of red and green, or olive- 
green and brown. But this is not all that is required. 
Discords in two colors may be changed to concords by the 
addition of a third ; or, a discord — in two colors which can 
not be made to harmonize — may be toned down and ren- 
dered less disagreeable by the introduction of a third ; but, 
when and where and how this may be done, can not be 
taught by written rules, from the fact that the eye can not 
be educated in color-harmony through the ear, any better 
than the latter organ can be taught harmony of sounds 
through the medium of the eye. "We say a black next a 
green, or between red and green, becomes dull and rusty, 
and both the other colors lose by the arrangement. Intro- 
duce a white or yellow next the black, and it at once shows 
its own color. Suoh rules as these, however, can not prop- 



22 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTINa, AND GRAINING. 

erly be called instructive, for the reason that such knowl- 
edge should come by intuition ; otherwise it would seem to 
be of no particular value to its possessor. It is easy to say 
that notes three and four in the musical scale struck to- 
gether give forth discordant sounds ; but to the ear which 
does not know this by intuition, the fact taught through 
written rules would be as seed sown on stony ground. The 
writer moralizes a little here, because he knows some reader 
will expect to find full and complete directions for the com- 
bination of colors in color compositions, which will be ap- 
plicable under any and all conditions. As said before, this 
knowledge comes only through the eye by practice, and by 
the study of good examples. 



CHAPTER III. 

OEN"AMEKTIKG WITH COLORS. 

l2^ view of the fact tliat tlie sole object in ornamenting 
with color is to please the eye, that organ alone must be 
consulted as to what is good. We haye now to deal with 
art, not science ; with what is empirical and not what is 
rational. We propose to furnish rules, not reasons. 

That two or more colors bear to each other certain rela- 
tions, when chemically or scientifically considered, is not, 
of itself, a good reason why, in color ornamentation, these 
colors may be displayed in juxtaposition with good effect. 
Chemistry is interesting in this connection, not because of 
its processes, but its results. The theory of color is inter- 
esting, as a fact ; but it interests the intellectual, not the 
perceptive, faculties. A knowledge of color-harmony is in- 
tuitive, not acquired. The faculty, where it exists, may 
be improved by the study of good examples ; but where the 
natural faculty is wanting it can not be acquired. With 
the man who dogmatically asserts that a thing is good be- 
cause it suits his tast^, or want of taste, there is an end to 



24 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

argument. To discuss the question of color-harmony with 
the stone-blind or color-blind were altogether vanity. Such 
have no part or lot in this matter, only to accept the rules 
laid down by those who possess the natural gift of distin- 
guishing harmony in color, improved by the study of good 
examples. 

Undue importance has been given to the place and pro- 
portion of colors as displayed in Nature ; but Nature's ex- 
amples are worthy of imitation only so far as they conform 
to the rules of harmonious combination. To assert that the 
combinations and contrasts of colors as displayed in natu- 
ral objects must necessarily be harmonious and pleasing to 
tlie eye, were as absurd as to declare that all natural sounds 
must necessarily be pleasing to the ear, or all natural odors 
grateful to the nostrils, or natural tastes to the palate. 
Again : a house, or other modern building, is not in any 
sense a natural object ; but, with its formal lines and angles, 
is artificial to the last degree ; and any attempt to give it 
the appearance of a natural object, by coloring it with those 
colors which Nature most largely displays, would be simply 
absurd. Nature, too, exhibits her colors and her color 
combinations, many of which are highly pleasing and de- 
lightful, while others are equally violent and incongruous 
in contrast, by the light of day ; while colors used in inte- 
rior decoration are intended to have their best effect, neces- 
sarily, under subdued light, and frequently under artifi- 
cial light. Now, certain colors appear very different, when 
viewed by artificial light, than when seen by daylight ; and, 
in ornamenting with colors, provision must be made for 



ORNAMEKTIXG WITH COLORS. 25 

this difference. For example : yellow light lends to red, 
and causes it to approach to scarlet, and crimson looks 
brighter than by day. Blue — that is, the darker tones of 
this color — loses by the absorption of too much light, and 
appears almost black ; and light blues and greens are apt to 
be confounded. Therefore, blue intended for exhibition 
by gaslight should be of a bright tone, and, if dark blue 
be indispensable, it should be lightened with white, or a 
brighter tone of the same. 

The writer would impress most strongly the importance 
of a full and complete concej)tion of the effect before taking 
the initial step in decorating with colors. There should be 
extended surfaces of a uniform tint for the eye to rest upon, 
and the colors used in ornamentation should be decided 
and contrasting. Cold gray tones and flowing lines and 
perspective drawing are not in harmony with the formal 
lines of our domestic architecture. With a true artist the 
work is complete before the brush is applied, even as in 
sculpture the ideal statue is the inspiration, the marble 
form the exposition only. The plastic clay, under the hands 
of the sculptor, enables the author to make patent his in- 
vention. So with the true artist in coloristic decoration. 
The colored pigments are the signs whereby others versed 
in the language may read his inspirations. If a design 
be faulty in conception, no amount of elaboration or per- 
fectness in detail will remedy the defect. The result 
only is important, the process and the parts are insig- 
nificant. Undue attention to detail, and a fondness for 

copying natural objects and forms, show a barrenness of 

2 



20 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

invention and a sad want of appreciation of wliat is genu- 
ine in art. 

In color ornamentation care must be taken, not only in 
the selection of tlie colors, but in the relative quantities or 
proportions which each shall bear to the other ; the latter 
requirement being almost equally important with the first. 

In the house of the writer is a chamber set apart for 
state purposes. Its ample ceiling is ornamented in water- 
colors, the work of a so-called fresco-painter who possessed 
correct taste in color-harmony (all of them do not), and a 
hand most cunning and skillful in execution. This cham- 
ber becomes a common room when the invalid wife and 
mother is prostrated by one of those peculiar attacks which 
the doctors say require in curative treatment that the body 
must lie supinely. This position would of course bring the 
ceiling in the direct scope of the patient's vision. My 
reader will, if he can, imagine the satisfaction of the writer 
and his gratitude toward the artist when the patient sufferer 
exclaimed, in a period of convalescence : " Oh, what a lux- 
ury to be sick in this room ! How many hours of dull 
pain have been brightened and made endurable by the deli- 
cacy of those lines and the sweet harmonies of those color 
blendings and contrasts— those exquisite shadings, which 
keep the mind ever in a pleasant doubt as to whether the 
figures be the work of the pencil or the chisel ! In all the 
many hours of my painful illness this ceiling has been an 
unfailing source of joy, and I have come to know how 
beautiful it is only by studying its lines and tracings and 
colors a thousand and a thousand times again ! It has 



ORNAMENTING WITH COLORS. 27 

made more than tolerable the otherwise weary hours of my 
past sickness, and robs the anticipated future hours of ill- 
ness of half their terrors." 

Think of this in comparison with cold, plain ceilings in 
Puritan whiteness ! ^^ Oh, what a luxury to be sick in 
such a room ! " Is there any medicament, any sirup of 
drowsy poppy or mandragora, to challenge comparison in 
healing power with the work of the artist-painter ? The 
great terror, in bodily sickness which prostrates, is the 
want of mental occupation. Given agreeable mental occu- 
pation, and bodily prostration becomes easy to bear. 

Suppose a case. Eeading of books is for sanitary rea- 
sons, or in the nature of things, forbidden. The exercise 
of the industrial faculties is equally out of the question ; 
the great Desert of Sahara does not suggest so fearful a 
blank as protracted sickness under such circumstances ; 
and where look for hope ? Eeading is forbidden ; employ- 
ment of the industrial faculties is out of the question ; 
music and mirth are not in harmony with the sick-cham- 
ber. Where look for hope ? Kind reader, the Bountiful 
Giver has bestowed on us perceptive faculties, and color 
whereupon to exercise those faculties. Therein lies hope ! 
There is not a shadow of doubt in the mind of the writer 
that many of the dreary hours of sick-room existence may 
be rendered hours of joy ; that the long, long, weary days — 
those days of mental and physical inanition, the very recol- 
lection of which one would for ever blot from memory — may 
be made pleasant recollections by a simple display of color, 
harmonious in tints and proportions. But the design of 



28 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTmG, AND GRAINING. 

work must not be intrusted to eyes which see not, nor its 
execution to unskilled hands. To produce good results, 
eyen in so small a matter as the coloring of a sleei^ing- 
room, requires the pencil of an artist just as certainly as 
did those productions of the great masters, Titian and Tin- 
toret, which enchant the world. But let us not forget 
that these same colors, so powerful for good, are not impo- 
tent for evil ; and that we may, '^ according' as we build," 
from our painted ceiling, call down curses as from the brow 
of Ebal, rather than blessings from the heights of Gerizim. 
Exaggerated outlines, fanciful drawings, wreaths, flow- 
ers, vines, and all imitations of natural objects, must be 
strictly avoided. The figures must be purely conventional, 
and so severely simple that they can not, by the aid of a dis- 
tempered fancy, take on shapes either grotesque or horri- 
ble, thereby converting our sick-room into a ^' chamber of 
horrors." Faces, portraits, Cupids, nor dancing-girls, should 
look down ujoon us from ceilings in domestic architecture. 
They are as much out of place there as they would be on 
the carpet : they are certain to be upside down, or standing 
on their heads, when we view them, and a sick person has 
not strength of mind sufficient to set them right. Bou- 
quets, vines, and other imitations of natural objects, are not 
good, because they cease to interest when they cease to be 
objects of wonder or curiosity. However beautiful at first 
sight, they are in the nature of things inferior to the objects 
they are intended to imitate, and, what is of most impor- 
tance, entirely out of place. There can be no sentiment 
in a painted bunch of flowers on a ceiling, however fault- 



ORNAMENTING WITH COLORS. 29 

less the drawing and coloring may be ; and such objects 
soon become matters of indifference or disgust. On the 
contrary, purely conventional designs and figures — the same 
being artistically drawn, and kept subseryient to the main 
object, which is the display of colors — always present them- 
selves with a fresh charm, and seem never to lose their at- 
tractiveness. In tracing the lines and curves, the shad- 
ings and contrasts, the mind finds agreeable and pleasant 
occupation when by sickness it is deprived of its usual re- 
sources. Ifc will hardly be claimed by the most enthusiastic 
devotee of realistic art that the copying of natural' objects 
or imitations of nature gives room for play of the imagina- 
tion, or that such art has the remotest connection with in- 
spiration. No work of art can move the beholder with any 
sentiment which did not necessarily belong to its concej)- 
tion or production. None will deny that the drawing of 
purely conventional forms and figures affords good scope 
for the imagination, and for the display of true artistic 
taste. Therefore, the artist who, with real artistic fervor, 
changes the dead level of a plain white ceiling into a 
^'^ thing of beauty," is practicing art in the better sense of 
the word, and is reaching out toward its highest signifi- 
cance. 

This digression is made as a protest against the growing 
disposition of the times, which seems to be to elevate horse- 
painting and cow-painting above art as practiced by the 
masters above named. Landscape and cattle painting, and 
flower and insect painting, and rabbits and rats and Guinea- 
pigs and ducks and jiucklings, and chanticleer with all his 



30 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

cackling harem, though given on canvas more natural than 
life, only serve to show how expert and skillful men may 
become in copying natural forms and imitating natural 
objects. Talent of this kind of a high order is certainly 
respectable, and such a display of skill is truly wonderful ; 
but the practice of it does not necessarily include inspira- 
tion, invention, or genius, without which fine art can not 
be said to exist. 



CHAPTER IV. 

PAIKTS : THEIE OKIGIiT AND SOUECES. 

The mineral kingdom yields the great bulk of pig- 
ments used in plain and decorative house-painting. Na- 
tive paints are found, in certain geological formations, in 
inexhaustible and boundless supply. 

These are generally neutral tints or shades, being 
mostly silica colored with iron oxides. They are useful and 
durable both in color and substance, and as a rule are not 
as liable to change as are the colors produced by chemical 
agency. The animal kingdom furnishes the bright scarlet 
known as carmine, and crimson and purple lakes, as also 
Prussian and Antwerp blues. 

Colors extracted from vegetable substances have been 
mostly discarded in painting, by reason of their fugitive 
character. Among those retained are the madder-colors, 
indigo, and gamboge. The important pigment lampblack 
is also classed among vegetable colors. 

All the metals yield pigments of some sort. 

Lead yields white-lead, and other whites of similar 
nature and composition, distinguished by various names, as 



32 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

silver- white, Krem's wliite, China white, etc. ; also orange 
mineral, red oxide, called red-lead, and the gray oxide, 
called litharge. 

Zinc furnishes the beautiful paint known as zinc-white. 

Copper gives verdigris, and, in combination with ar- 
senic, the unrivaled green known as Paris or emerald 
green — for a comprehensive and detailed description of 
which see Chapter XI, entitled '^ Paris Green as a Pig- 
ment. " 

Iron furnishes Indian red. Mars brown. Mars orange 
and yellow, and Venetian red. Mercury produces in com- 
bination with sulphur what is known as true vermilion. 

Arsenicum supplies King's yellow and orpiment. Cobalt- 
blue and smalt are made from the metal cobalt, and the re- 
cently-found metals, such as uranium, cadmium, molybde- 
num, etc. 3 produce colors of peculiar beauty and brilliancy. 

AVhite-lead, the comprehensive term for white pigments, 
for ages the only substance which includes all the qualities 
or properties required by the painter, is an oxide of that 
familiar metal, lead, more popularly known, perhaps, than 
any except iron. The metal, liquefied by heat, is run into 
molds forming a circle or ring, with bars across something 
like a round gridiron ; the object being to present as much 
surface as possible, conformably to certain other require- 
ments. These shapes — buckles, as they are technically 
called — are exposed some weeks, more or less, in covered 
earthen pots, to the action of vinegar, or other acetic acid, 
volatilized by gentle heat. Through the action of this va- 
porized acid, the metal gradually loses its metallic struct- 



PAINTS: THEIR ORIGIN AND SOURCES. 33 

lire and character, and takes on the appearance of a 
whitish, friable substance, which is chemically known as 
carbonate of lead. This, after being washed and crushed, 
and ground in oil, is the white-lead paint of the painter. 
The other white pigment (white oxide of zinc) is produced 
as follow^s : The ores, crushed to the size of coarse sand, and 
mixed with fine coal, are spread on the fire, and, when raised 
to 2,000° Fahrenheit, are deoxidized ; the oxygen of the ore 
uniting with the coal, forming carbonic-acid gas, the zinc 
rising as a metallic yapor. The yapor and gases are sucked 
from the furnace, and conyeyed through iron pipes to a 
large room into which they are driyen, and out of which 
the gas escapes. This room is filled with large, stout bags, 
suspended open-mouthed to catch the zinc, which, in its 
passage from the furnace to the bags, goes through cham- 
bers into which air is admitted. In its yaporous form it 
unites wath the oxygen of the atmosphere, forming the 
light, flaky substance known as flowers of zinc. The oxide 
at this stage is extremely light, thirty or forty pounds being 
sufficient to fill a barrel. It is then compressed to about 
one fourth of its former bulk, and packed in barrels of two 
hundred pounds or casks of four hundred pounds, and sold 
to manufacturers whose business it is to i)repare the same, 
by mixing and grinding in oil, for the use of the painter. 

Lampblack, drop-black, iyory-black, bone-black, Frank- 
fort black, are the names applied to the simple substance 
which affords all the blacks used in painting, and in the 
manufacture of printer's ink, yiz., carbon. Lampblack, the 
most important and, useful form of carbon to be considered 



34 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

here, is produced from the article known in trade as com- 
mon rosin, or other bituminous substances. The finer kinds 
are made from rosin, and the common kinds from coal or 
gas tar. All resinous, oily, fatty substances produce lamp- 
black in the process of burning ; it being simply the soot 
resulting from highly combustible bodies as they are im- 
perfectly consumed. 



CHAPTER V. 
mixi:n^g paints and colors. 

This would seem a facile subject about which to write ; 
and so it would be, if the names of colors carried with them 
to every mind the same significance ; but these names are 
so indeterminate, and convey to the individual hearer, or 
reader, such entirely differing sensations, that we confess 
to not a little misgiving as to our ability to so present the 
subject as to make it fairly intelligible. 

We proposed in the preface to connect the names of the 
colors with some familiar and well-known specimens of 
flowers or fruits as examples. This is no easy task, nor 
does it help us altogether out of our difficulty ; for the rea- 
son that flowers, particularly those in a state of domestica- 
tion, present such a variety of tones of the same color under 
varying conditions and circumstances. 

Another difficulty which presents itself is the wrong, 
or rather false impressions, existing in the minds of many, 
maybe a majority, as to the exact meaning which at- 
taches to the names of colors. When we speak of a tri- 
angle, every hearer traces on the tablet. of his mind a figure 



36 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

having three sides and three corners. When, however, 
we speak of yellow, the word conveys to the mind of 
each individual hearer possibly a different sensation. One, 
hearing the sound of the name, will see, in mental vision, 
yellow-brown stone ; another, the pale hue of the prim- 
rose ; another, the deep yellow of the marigold ; and so 
on through the whole range of the almost endless tones 
and hues of that color. 

It is easy to say, blue and yellow commingled produce 
green. Yet if the yellow be the color of yellow-brown 
stone, and the blue a red-purple, or violet, or indigo, the 
resulting color will not give to the eye a pure green. There- 
fore, when in our color nomenclature we use the word yel- 
low, we would photograph on the mind the reflected color 
of the buttercup ; not the pale tint of the primrose, not 
the color of the orange or the lemon. In all the world of 
flowers, this is the most pertinent example we can offer of 
a pure yellow ; for the reason, if there were none other, 
that it is the most familiar. Thus we have for comparison 
a familiar example, well known to young and old, easily 
remembered, and presenting in different localities the same 
color. 

With blue the case is altogether different, and the diffi- 
culties are almost insurmountable, for the reason that the 
floral kingdom — so far as the writer's observation has ex- 
tended — presents no example of a pure blue ; and herein 
we may accuse Nature of being very niggardly, in view of 
the lavish abundance of yellows, purples, crimsons, and 
scarlets, the purples particularly being of gorgeous richness 



MIXING PAINTS AND COLORS. 37 

and purity. The flax-flower among blossoms is the best 
we have to ofier. The poet tells us : 

" Deep in the wave is a coral grove, 
Where the purple-mullet and gold-fish rove ; 
Where the sea-flower spreads her leaves of blue, 
That never are wet with the falling dew." 

Yet, hoYv' ever blue the sea-flower may be, we can not present 
it as a familiar examjole of a pure blue color. We have in 
the sky — outside the world, so to speak — the only example 
of pure blue which the eye of man has ever beheld or ever 
will probably behold. The reader must not mistake in sup- 
posing the sky will at any and all times, and in every part 
of the vaulted arch, offer for his delectation this heavenly 
azure. It is never seen in a winter sky in our latitude, and 
in summer only under (over, perhaps, would be the better 
word) peculiar conditions. It is not seen in a calm nor in 
a storm ; never in a south wind or an east wind, or when the 
wind is from the north, for the reason that with none of 
these winds do we see the sky glorified with those passing, 
fleecy clouds, with sharply defined outlines, which are indis- 
pensable in the exhibition of heaven's own blue. If the 
reader would revel in the joy born of the sight of this color 
in all its purity, let him watch and wait, for 'tis a rare spec- 
tacle, and only shown when all the conditions are favorable, 
and Nature in her best mood. These conditions are as 
follows : A day in the country, following an afternoon or 
evening summer thunder-storm, clearing up during the 
night, and ushered *in by sunrise in an unclouded sky and 



38 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

a brisk west or northwest wind. Early' in the forenoon 
large masses of fleecy clouds, with clearly cut, sharp out- 
lines, will chase each other across the face of the sky. 
Then, by close watching, may be seen in the zenith, sur- 
rounded by those creamy white cloud-masses, a patch of 
pure blue color, suggesting to the pious mind heayen's 
own gateway. 

As before said, the flax-flower is the best example we can 
offer, out of the endless variety of the floral world, to con- 
vey the idea of what we mean when we speak of blue, the 
third and last of the primary colors as seen in the spec- 
trum. 

Red, the first of the primary colors, is that pure red 
color which is neither scarlet nor crimson, and Nature of- 
fers but few specimens of it ; indeed, she has confined the 
use of this most pleasing of all colors to old and young, to 
the painting of the petals of flowers, the tempting hues of 
luscious fruits, and the gorgeous plumage of tropical birds. 
Nowhere is it to be seen in the sky, except in rare sunsets, 
in the water, or in the earth ; and in the general landscape 
so small is its proportion, compared with the other primary 
colors, that it may be said to have no place there. The 
difficulty in obtaining a pure red is, that the slightest 
reflection of the yellow ray changes it to scarlet, and the 
most infinitesimal commingling of blue to crimson. So 
with pure blue : the faintest suspicion of yellow makes of it 
a blue-green, and the slightest show of red changes it to 
purple. We suggest the red Dutch currant as the best 
familiar example of pure red color, because of its common 



MIXING PAINTS AND COLORS. 39 

occurrence in temperate climates, and because no better 
familiar example is offered. 

We seem now to have a point of departure — not the 
best, perhaps, but certainly much better than none ; because, 
when we speak of red after this disquisition, we shall be 
understood to mean the color of the ripe currant, and not 
old red sandstone. The name of yellow will suggest the 
color of the buttercup, not the yellowish-brown of the ochre 
pigments ; and blue will call to mind the color of heaven. 
The teaching of the practice of the art of compounding 
colored pigments will be looked for in the succeeding 
chapter. 



CHAPTER VI. 

MIXING PAINTS AND COLOES. — (CONTINUED.) 

Beginning with the primary colors, we say : 

Eed with yellow, commingled in varying proportions, 
produces scarlet, orange, and orange-yellow, in infinitude 
of tones ; and these are termed secondary colors. 

Red with blue gives the whole range of crimsons and 
purples, according as the amount of blue is varied. 

Yellow with blue gives all the tones of blue and yellow 
green, as the blue or yellow in the mixture predominates. 
These secondary colors will be pure in tone just in degree 
as the primaries of which they are compounded are pure. 

The other secondary color, pure gray, is derived from 
the extreme colors, black and white. It is a cold, entirely 
neutral tint or shade, and will be pure just in proportion as 
the black is intensely black and the white purely white. 

Red with gray gives first a warm gray, until the contin- 
ued adding of red carries the color out of the range of grays 
into brown, and this color so produced would be called 
warm brown. 



MIXING PAINTS AND COLORS. 41 

Yellow with gray gives a yellow gray with a tinge of 
green. 

Blue with gray gives a cold blue gray. 

Blue and red with gray produce a nice tint, called 
French gray, and will be dark or light in proportion to the 
quantity of white present in the mixture, and will be warm 
or cold as the red or blue predominates. 

Eed tinted with white gives jDink. 

Blue with white gives pale blue of any desired tone. 

Yellow with white gives all the intermediate tints be- 
tween the lightest, palest straw-color to pure yellow, and, 
with a slight addition of red, cream-color. 

Eed with black or deep purple, indigo-color, gives the 
darkest brown, and will be warm in proportion as it reflects 
the red ray. 

Red witli black or purple, and white, produces brown- 
stone color, and a little yellow added makes the mixture a 
better imitation of this popular building-stone. 

Black or purple, with white and yellow, give all the 
olive-greens. 

Black and red and yellow with white, give all the exten- 
sive range of drabs, as also fawn-color. 

Black, in mixture, carries all the colors — primary, sec- 
ondary, and tertiary — into the range of browns or olive- 
greens. 

Green tinted with white gives apple-green of various 
tones. 

This seems to include all that can be said instructively 
as to the mixing of colored paints for the production of the 



42 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

possible deriyatives from the primary colors and the ex- 
treme colors, black and white. Below we give the same in 
a condensed form, for easier reference : 

Scarlet is derived from red with yellow. 

Orange is derived from red with yellow. 

Orange-yellow is derived from red with yellow. 

Crimson is derived from red with blue. 

Red crimson is derived from red with blue. 

Blue crimson is derived from red with blue. 

Purple is derived from blue with red. 

Red purple is derived from blue with red. 

Blue purple is derived from blue with red. 

Pink is derived from white with red. 

Pure gray is derived from white with black. 

French gray is derived from white, with red and black. 

Blue gray is derived from white with black or blue, and 
red. 

"Warm gray is derived from white, with black or blue, 
and red, with preponderance of red. 

Green is derived from blue with yellow. 

Olive-green is derived from blue with yellow and 
black. 

Apple-green is derived from green and white. 

Silk-green is derived from green and white. 

Pale blue is derived from white and blue. 

Pure brown is derived from black and red. 

Red brown is derived from red and black. 

Brown-stone is derived from red and black and yellow 
and white. 



MIXING PAINTS AND COLORS, 43 

Drab and fawn color are derived from red and white and 
black and yellow. 

Buff is derived from white and orange-yellow. 

Cream is derived from white and orange-yellow. 

Corn-color is derived from white and orange-yellow. 

Maroon is derived from red and purple and black. 

Chestnut is derived from red and yellow and black. 

Cuir-color is derived from white and yellow and black. 

Tawny color is derived from white and yellow and black. 

We would, from choice, present examples of these tints 
and broken colors directly to the visual organs of the reader, 
but it is quite impracticable in a work of this kind, how- 
ever desirable it may seem. Continuing this subject fur- 
ther, instructively, we present some facts which may prove 
valuable to one who may choose to mix colored pigments 
for his own profit or pleasure. The colors now employed 
in exterior house-painting being mostly neutral tints — with 
a bit of positive color shown on the molds and trimmings, 
according to taste or fancy, as drabs, grays, and fawn-col- 
ors—it follows, if a material can be found which in itself 
includes the colors necessary to produce any desired tint in 
the way of drabs or fawn-colors, to obtain such would be 
in the direction of economy ; a saving both in time and 
material. Therefore, we would suggest, in such case, the 
employment of that very useful pigment known in the 
trade as umber. This is presented in two forms : first, as 
crude or native umber, called raw Turkey umber ; and also 
as burnt umber — the native umber roasted — which process 
causes it to take on? a very rich, deep brown. These pig- 



44 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

ments, used in the production of any tint of drab or fawn- 
color, are the equivalent of black and red and yellow, and 
will give clearer tints than can ordinarily be j^roduced by 
the last-named colors. Burnt Turkey umber will give 
(mixed with white-lead or zinc-white) any desired tint in 
the way of warm drabs, and raw umber will give any de- 
sired shade of yellowish drab. The only caution necessary 
is care lest too much of the color may be used, the result of 
w^hich would be a tint darker than might be wanted. In 
these days, when colored j^aints are offered of almost every 
possible tone and tint and shade suitable for use in house- 
painting, there would seem to be no good reason why a 
householder should subject himself to the trouble and ex- 
pense of mixing his own colors, especially as a card showing 
these colored pigments is presented, wherefrom he may 
select such color as taste or inclination may dictate. 

Notwithstanding all these conveniences, it is possible 
— maybe probable — that some inquiring reader will pre- 
fer to make his own color, and look here to learn how to 
do it. To give rules for the production of every color, hue, 
tint, or shade, would be as impossible as to write a book 
which should include every possible combination of the 
letters which compose our alphabet. 

The list of colored paints offered for sale in the *^ coun- 
try-store," or in the ordinary paint-shop, is not by any 
means exhaustive ; and, in giving instruction as to what 
paints to order for certain purposes, care must be taken to 
make no mention of those which are not, as a rule, within 
reach. 



MIXING PAINTS AND COLORS. 45 

As before said, white-lead, or zinc-wliite., is the staple 
of all light-colored oil-paints, and the quantity of color- 
ing-matter, compared with the base, is as a drop in the 
bucket — not literally, of course, but comparatively. In 
this connection attention is called to Chapter VIII, page 
57, wherein the common and extreme adulteration of 
paints is set forth ; and for the reason that, in case one 
should follow the written directions below, and the result 
should disappoint, an excuse may be at hand for such an 
unexpected outcome. For example : suppose the would-be 
color-mixer to have on hand a hundred pounds of pure 
white-lead for the purpose of making a drab neutral tint 
for painting the exterior of his dwelling-house. He learns 
from the book that a single pound of pure burnt umber, or 
raw umber, as the case may be, will in all probability be 
sufficient to produce the tint or shade he may require ; the 
chances are, unfortunately, that the pound of umber he 
will get will be adulterated to the extent of eighty per 
cent., and will contain only a fifth part of the coloring- 
matter he requires, and will, when mixed in with the 
white, instead of giving the color required, simply change 
the comparatively pure white of the lead to a dirty white. 
Yet he has done according to the book, and the result is 
not as predicted. Who shall bear the blame — the book or 
the color-maker ? 

The colored pigments used in tinting with white are' 
burnt Turkey umber, raw Turkey umber, Indian red, Ve- 
netian red, chrome-yellow and the yellow ochres, ultra- 
marine blue, Prussian blue (which is a deep purple), burnt 



46 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

Italian sienna, and raw Italian sienna. These latter named 
are transparent colors, so called, as are tlie umbers, Prussian 
blue, and verdigris. 

Burnt umber, mixed into wliite-lead or zinc-wliite, will 
give almost any drab tint that can be desired, of a warm 
tone ; that is, tending to red. By the addition of more 
umber, one or two or more darker shades may be had for 
contrast on the molds and cornices and trimmings, which 
shades will be entirely in harmony with the body-color, by 
analogy. Not to repeat, the same rule will apply to the 
use of raw umber, only that yellow drabs, instead of red, 
will be the result, and the trimming colors so produced 
will be almost too cold and greenish to please the eye. 
Good effects are produced by the introduction of some 
decidedly positive colors in moderate quantity, in contrast 
with neutral tints — such, for example, as Indian red or 
some other rich red brown — and this practice is hereby 
recommended. 

Eaw sienna gives, with white, a soft, clear straw-color 
or buff. Burnt sienna, with white, produces a pink of an 
undesirable hue. Yellow ochre, that is, the genuine "Eo- 
chelle ochre," with white-lead, produces a range of tints 
most to be desired, and pure and sweet in tone, from the 
clear yellow-brown of the ochre-pigment up to the palest 
straw-color used ; the pigments thus produced will prove du- 
rable, and in color not fugitive. Indian red will give, with 
white-lead, a peach-blossom color, which was once a favorite 
color for walls in interior painting. Prussian blue gives 
all the tones of blue, from purple to the lightest sky-blue. 



MIXING PAINTS AND COLORS. 47 

Verdigris gives with white a clear leaf-green, and with 
white and )'ellow a pea-green, which is a good color for 
wooden houses in the country. It will be borne in mind 
that in coloring with verdigris the paint will be very much 
darker when dried upon the building than when viewed in 
the mass. Pure French verdigris is blue to the eye, but, 
when ground in oil and used as a paint, it puts on a dark 
bronze-green, and deepens in hue for a long time after ex- 
posure to the light. This pigment is specially adapted for 
ship and vessel painting, because of its unrivaled water- 
proof qualities, its tenacity and non-liability to crack and 
flake off, and its property of drying under salt-water. 
When used for vessel-work it should be mixed as follows : 
Ten pounds of pure verdigris, two pounds of pure white- 
lead, and one pound of chrome-green, light, so called. 
Venetian red with white produces an impure pink which 
will fade very quickly when exposed to the sunlight. Ultra- 
marine blue gives, with white, a range of purer, clearer light 
blues than does Prussian blue. The carmines and lakes 
are used mostly as glazing-colors, and their peculiarities 
and mode of application will be found fully set forth under 
the head of ^* Carriage-Painting." 



CHAPTER VII. 

IMPORTAKT. — PAINT AS AFFECTED BY ATMOSPHERIC AGEN- 
CIES. 

Heat would seem to be a power as indispensable in the 
drying of oil-paints as in the growth of plants. A freshly- 
painted surface will, under certain atmospheric conditions, 
remain fresh and soft for a length of time which will put 
the patience of a Job, even, to the severest trial. Paints 
which will dry hard in twelve hours under an atmosphere 
showing 70° of heat, will continue for days and days in 
the same state as when first applied under a freezing 
temperature. In short, the time required or necessary for 
the drying of a coat of oil-paint will be in exact propor- 
tion to the number of degrees of heat to which it may be 
exposed. This, within reason and moderation, of course. 
Because of the foregoing proposition, one must not expect 
to dry a coat of paint in five minutes by exposing the same 
to a burning heat. Therefore, the difiiculty of compound- 
ing and preparing colors which shall, dry qr^ickly enough 
under a winter atmosphere, and not harden in the con- 
taining package, or dry too quickly under summer heats. 



PAINT AS AFFECTED BY A TMOSPHERIC A GENCIES. 49 

will be understood and appreciated. The sensitiveness of 
freslily-painted surfaces to the influence of heat, or the 
absence of heat, is demonstrated by certain experiments 
conducted by the writer, with a view to ascertain with ex- 
actness the facts in the case. For this purpose, painted 
surfaces were exposed, in a steam-heated room, under a 
temperature of 70° Fahr. These surfaces were placed 
near an opening through which the unheated or cold 
air of the adjoining apartment entered, and came in 
contact with a portion of the painted surface. Examina- 
tion on the day following the exposure revealed the fact 
that the portion not exposed to the draft of cold air 
was quite hard and dry ; whereas the portion which had 
been under the action of the colder atmosphere was as soft 
and fresh as when first applied. We desire to make this 
so plain that any wayfaring man, though a self -constituted 
painter, may not err therein. Should we attempt to teach 
the average farming or producing mind of the worse than 
folly of attempting to raise lettuce or radishes out-o'-doors 
in our winter climate, we should be hailed with a general 
shout of derision. Some query as to our grandmother 
would, no doubt, be heard. Yet, as plants will not grow 
in the absence of heat, so will paint not dry readily where 
a certain amount of Iieat is wanting. 

The sportsman, of whom we read, said, in answer to a 
disgusted and highly-incensed farmer who called him to 
account for attempting to shoot his prize calf, " You see, 
Mr. Farmer, I aimed so as to hit it if it were a deer, and 
miss it if it were a calf ! " Now, we would like to make 



50 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

a paint on this same theory, if we could but find the way 
''how to do it." Under the heading, " JSTew Method," 
in the following pages, will be found certain directions 
for the proper mode of applying liquid colors ; but, in 
connection therewith, it must be borne in mind that in 
all house-painting operations, whether out-doors or in- 
doors, heat is a power which must be taken into account, 
and it must be remembered that a mode of procedure which 
will work well in a summer temperature will not give sat- 
isfactory results in a wintry atmosphere. All oil-paints 
which dry readily, dry, or coat-oyer, on the surface. The 
skin, or film, thus formed, covers a mass of soft paint, and 
is wonderfully sensitive to atmospheric influences. A sud- 
den lowering of temperature will cause it not only to 
wrinkle, so that the surface will reflect a different tone of 
color, but the gloss will disappear, as tender plants shrink 
and shrivel under the blighting influence of a killing frost. 
There need not be much fear of this result on a first coat 
applied to new or unpainted pine-wood, because of the 
absorbing quality of the same, which will leave no mass 
outside to skin or film over. 

Having given the facts, it now becomes pertinent to 
seek a remedy. The only way to avoid such an untoward 
event — supposing the work must, in tITe nature of things, be 
completed in winter temperature — is to so extend, rub out 
under the brush, the finishing coat, that there shall be no 
mass of soft paint on the surface over which this skin, or 
film, can form. Every practical painter understands the 
phenomenon, and can, if he choose, so paint a house in 



FA LVT A S AFFECTED BY A TMOSPHERIC A GENCIES. 5 1 

cold weather that alternate weather- or clap-boards shall 
present the appearance before alluded to, while the inter- 
vening boards shall be smooth and perfect. Our advice is, 
that painting should always be performed, if possible, in an 
atmosphere of 70° of heat, either natural or artificial ; and 
we have to ask that the paint shall not be made a scape- 
goat to bear the sins of ignorance, carelessness, or the will- 
ful neglect of plainly- written directions. To be wise above 
what is written is, unfortunately, a common sin. 



CHAPTER VIIL 

EXTERIOK HOUSE-PAINTIIs^G. 

The extreme fondness for white exteriors in discordant 
contrast with green window-blinds, and for dead white for 
interior painting, is passing away. A better taste now, to 
some extent, prevails, and it is devoutly to be wished that 
the mania for white and green may return no more for ever. 
Apropos to this subject. Downing, in his "Architecture of 
Coun try-Houses," says : '' The color of the outside of a 
country-house is of more importance than is generally sup- 
posed, since, next to the form itself, the color is the first 
impression the eye receives on beholding it ; and, in some 
cases, the color makes its impression even before we fully 
comprehend the form of the building. The greater num- 
ber of our country-houses, in all parts of the United States, 
have hitherto been painted white, partly because white-lead 
is supposed to be a better preservative than other colors 
(though the white paint generally used is one of the worst 
lin this respect), and partly because of its giving an appear- 
ance of especial newness to a house, which with many per- 
sons is in itself a recommendation. No person of taste, 



EXTERIOR HOUSE-PAINTING. 



b'6 



who gives the subject the least consideration, is, however, 
guilty of the mistake of painting or coloring country- 
houses white ; and yet, there are so many who have never 
given the subject a moment's thought, that we must urge 
upon them a few arguments against so great a breach of 
good taste. Our first objection to white is, that it is too 
glaring and conspicuous. We scarcely know anything more 
uncomfortable to the eye than to approach the sunny side 
of a house on one of our brilliant midsummer days when it 
revels in the fashionable purity of its color. It is absolutely 
painful. Nature, full of kindness to man, has covered most 
of the surface that meets his eye in the country with a 
soft green hue, at once refreshing and most grateful to the 
eye. Many of our country-houses appear to be colored 
on the very opposite principle ; and one needs, in broad 
sunshine, to turn his eyes away from them to relieve them 
by a glimpse of the soft, refreshing shades that everywhere 
pervade the trees, the grass, and the surface of the earth. 
Our second objection to white is, that it does not harmo- 
nize with the country, and thereby mars the effect of rural 
landscapes. Nothing tends so much to destroy breadth 
of tone as any object of considerable size and of brilliant 
white. It stands harshly apart from all the soft shades 
of th3 scene. Hence landscape-painters always studiously 
avoid the introduction of white in their buildings, and give 
them, instead, some neutral tint — a tint which unites or 
contrasts equally with the color of the trees and grass, and 
which seems to blend into other parts of natural landscape, 
instead of being a discordant note in the general harmony." 



54 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTma, AND GRAINING. 

Wordsworth, in a little volume on *' The Scenery of the 
Lakes," remarks that the objections to white as a color in 
large spots or masses in landscapes are insurmountable. 
He says it destroys the gradations of distance, haunts the 
eye, and disturbs the repose of Nature. The writer, in his 
book on "House-Painting," says of the use of white for ex- 
teriors : "It is a kind of Puritanism in painting which has 
no warrant in Nature, which, in such matters, should meas- 
urably be our guide and instructor. If we go to her for in- 
struction, she will point us to the yaulted arch above, fres- 
coed by day with a thousand shapes and hues of loveliness 
and beauty, and by night with myriads of stars ; to the 
cool, gray tints of the morning twilight, and the gorgeous 
blazoning of the summer sunset. She will show us a land- 
scape whereon, with lavish hand, she has painted forms of 
beauty of every color and hue, and tint and shade, and 
penciled with exquisite touches the tiniest leaf." 

It must not, however, be supposed that, in seeking in- 
struction from Nature, we are to copy the natural disposi- 
tion of colors in the decoration of our houses, either in kind 
or proportion. The fact that Nature, in the vernal season, 
spreads a carpet of living green beneath our feet, and, at all 
times, a canopy of azure above us, is not of itself good rea- 
son why the base of a house should be painted green, and 
the roof sky-blue. In fact, these colors should have little 
or no place in the external ornamentation of a building, for 
the reason, if for no other, that Nature exhibits them in 
abundance, and of a purity that art can hardly hope to 
rival. It should be remembered that a building is not, as 



EXTERIOR HOUSE-PAINTING. 55 

before said, in any sense a natural object, but, with its 
formal lines and severe angles, is artificial to tlie last de- 
gree, and must, under all circumstances, be treated as 
such ; and any attempt to make it appear a natural object, 
by painting it with such colors as Nature most largely dis- 
plays, is ridiculous. The true theory in painting a coun- 
try-house is to render the building conspicuous, but not 
obtrusive ; to enhance its good features, if it have any, and 
diminish, or hide, its defects ; to bring it into harmony 
with its surroundings, and with the general landscape. 

The use of the primary colors, red, blue, and yellow, and 
the extreme colors, black and white — excepting the latter 
in small quantity — is not admissible in exterior house-paint- 
ing. The advocate of white may ask, exultingly, '^ What 
looks better in a country landscape than a white house 
peeping out from a mass of green foliage ? " which means, 
simply, AVhat looks better than white when it is covered, or 
hidden from view ? For present purposes, the question of 
^Miow not to paint" may be considered as settled; and it 
becomes important to ask. How shall we paint, and what 
colors are fitted and most suitable for exterior house-paint- 
ing ? The economical view of the case will remain in abey- 
ance, as appearances only are now important. 

The tints or tones of color called neutral, or semi-neu- 
tral, as drabs, fawn, stone-colors, grays, buffs, cream and 
clay colors, are most suitable for exterior painting, as also 
olive-drabs and greenish-browns. Two or three tones of 
color which harmonize, either by contrast or analogy, may 
be exhibited in juxtaposition with good effect; and this 



56 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

style of painting is, happily, now the fashion — the custom 
of coloring exteriors with one uniform, unvarying tint, 
being among the by-gones. 

The art of combining colors with each other, and with 
black and white, to produce the various hues, tones, shades, 
and broken colors, so simple to an adept, is among the 
mysteries to the uninitiated, and impossible with many, 
from the fact that not a small proportion of mankind are 
possessed of perceptive faculties which are not sensitive to 
color-impressions — i. e., they are color-blind. The percep- 
tion of color is a natural gift, and the eye alone must be 
consulted as to what is good ; but, as much depends upon 
circumstances and conditions, as bodily and mental sanity, 
its judgment is by no means infallible, as *^all looks yellow 
to the jaundiced eye " ; and, under the most favorable cir- 
cumstances, the delicate organism of the eye becomes tired 
when exercised by certain color-impressions. 

Since the publication of his book on "House-Painting," 
the writer has been applied to by scores of people, from all 
parts of the country, to furnish rules for, and to give defi- 
nite quantities of, the various colored pigments necessary to 
produce the tones and tints commonly used in house-paint- 
ing. The difficulties in the way of such an attempt do not 
seem to have occurred to the applicants, probably for the 
reason that it is not generally known that much — perhaps 
most — of the paint sold by dealers throughout the country 
is not what it purports to be. Pure paints, whether white 
or colored, are the exception and not the rule ; that is, the 
chance of getting pure paint, as compared with the chance 



EXTERIOR HOUSE-PAINTING. 57 

of getting a highly-adnilterated material, is small ; and that 
is not the worst. Many of the materials sold under the 
yarious names, as umber, siennas, etc., are not, except in 
name, what they purport to be, but wholly fictitious ar- 
ticles, without any of the properties of the genuine. To 
illustrate the difficulties in the way of furnishing a set of 
formal rules whereby to instruct the uninitiated in the art 
of combining colors, let a case be supposed. It is easy to 
say that one pound, or two pounds, of raw Turkey umber 
with one hundred pounds of pure white-lead, or zinc, will 
produce a tone of pure drab, such as will be suitable for 
coloring the exterior surface of a house. Now, suppose, 
instead of both articles being pure and genuine, the lead, 
or zinc, to be so much cheapened by adulterating materials 
that the tinting power of the same is only one quarter that 
of pure white-lead or zinc. To mix with this a pound, or 
two pounds, of pure umber, would give a shade four times 
darker than is wanted ; or, suppose the lead to be pure, 
and the coloring material to be wholly a fictitious article, 
or to be so much reduced as to have lost almost its coloring 
property. In the one case, a dirty gray or brown would 
be the result ; and, in the other, almost no effect would be 
shown by mixing the same with one hundred pounds of the 
white. In any event, the failure would be attributed, not 
to the fictitious materials, but to the author of the rule ; 
and on his devoted head would fall all the blame. 

In painting, good results are possible only by the use of 
good materials, and the best are always the cheapest. A 
few facts will, perhaps, serve more fully to illustrate the 



58 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE FAmTmG, AND GRAINING. 

false economy in using cheap or impure paints, than would 
a volume of argument. Take the well-known article of 
lampblack as a familiar example. One pound of pure, fine 
lampblack, at a cost of twenty cents, possesses more color- 
ing-power, and will color more surface, used by itself, than 
five pounds of black paint commonly sold in the shops at a 
cost, say, of ten cents per pound ; or, twenty cents' worth 
of the pure pigment will realize a better result than will 
a dollar's worth of the so-called cheaper paints ; and the 
pure paint will retain its intense blackness almost for ever, 
while the cheaper article will, after a brief exposure to the 
weather, turn gray, and soon fall off. What is true of 
lampblack is applicable to all pigments, whether white or 
colored. No one can afford to use impure paints. The 
best of its kind is always the most economical ; and no con- 
sumer should ever purchase a package of paint which does 
not carry with it the name of some well-known and respon- 
sible manufacturer. No matter how great *Hhe skill of 
the workman may be, good results are obtainable only by 
the use of good materials." 

To remedy the evils which grow out of the common and 
extreme adulteration of paints, and to save the trouble and 
loss of time consequent upon the mixing of colors with 
white, the custom has been adopted of selling ready-made 
colors, which are tones and tints mostly suitable for exte- 
rior, and many of them equally suitable for interior, house- 
painting. The list comprises a great many different tints 
and shades of color, and these are produced by the use of 
such materials as experience has proved to be most suitable 



EXTERIOR HOUSE-PAINTING. 59 

for siicli ijurjiose — reference being had to economy, dura- 
bility, ease of working, and purity of tone of color. 

Bright blue and red grays, and pink and salmon colors, 
are not exhibited, for the reason that such colors are, in a 
measure, liable to the same objection as white, when used 
for exterior painting. These tones of color, too, are apt to 
deceive, and, in the result, to disappoint ; the eifect being 
so different with them, when seen in large masses, com- 
pared with a small patch of color shown on a sample-card. 

It is not claimed that these colors are entirely perma- 
nent. No compound color can remain unchanged under the 
bleaching influence of the bright sunshine of our climate. 
By *^ compound colors," in this connection, is meant those 
colors which are produced by tinting with white. Any and 
all of the natural-colored pigments, however permanent they 
may be by themselves, are rendered fugitive by admixture 
with white. For example : Venetian red, which, per se, is 
almost absolutely unchangeable, becomes one of the most 
fugitive colors when tinted with white-lead or zinc. The 
claim is, that ready-made colors are more permanent under 
the weather-influences than are the tones of color produced 
in the ordinary way ; because those coloring native pigments 
only are used which have been shown by actual test to best 
retain their color under the fading influence of sunlight ; 
also, that these colors are more homogeneous, for the reason 
that they are mixed with the white before the paint passes 
through the mill, and, consequently, become more thor- 
oughly incorporated — more entirely an integral portion of 
the mixture — than are the colors mixed in small quantity 



60 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING, 

at the moment of using the same;, as has been, heretofore, 
the general mode of producing tints and tones of color. 

It will be understood that these paints are ground in 
oil, *but not tliinned with the quantity of oil requisite to 
spread them with a paint-brush ; that they come to the 
hands of the painter of about the same thickness or con- 
sistency as ground white-lead, and require to be thinned 
with raw linseed-oil, or turpentine, or both. 

The writer is well aware of the fact that to a skillful 
painter the task of producing any desired tint or shade of 
color is an easy one, supposing the proper materials to be at 
hand, or readily procurable ; but such is not always the 
case, for, as before said, pure, unsophisticated colors are 
the exception, and not the rule. That the skill necessary 
to produce the yarious tones, tints, and shades of color is 
not universal among those who profess the art of painting, 
tlie writer has good reason to know, if only from the nu- 
merous applications received by him, since the publication 
of the book before mentioned, for rules and forms whereby 
those who are unskilled in compounding colors may be able 
to produce any desired tone, tint, or shade. 

The advantages of ready-made colors are many. They 
are more economical, because they are mixed in large quan- 
tities by steam-power, and, as only the exact quantity of 
coloring-matter required is added, there is no waste. The 
tones and tints are the purest possible, being produced by 
the use of the very best materials. They are always the 
same, being compounded by rule, and always in like pro- 
portions, and any additional required quantity of the same 



EXTERIOR HOUSE-PAINTING. 61 

color may be readily obtained. Samples are furnished, and 
tlie owner may select tlie exact tone or hue which may 
13lease his taste before the work shall be commenced. 

Referring to the use of those colors wherein the yellow 
ray is predominant, the writer would impress most strongly 
the fact that, of all the colors except white, yellow is, from 
its strong reflective power, the least diminished by dis- 
tance, and the most difficult to neutralize. There will 
always be more of it than the sample would lead one to 
expect. It never comes short of its promise, and becomes 
obtrusive as it is exhibited in large masses. Caution must, 
therefore, be used in the selection of the yellowish colors, 
for, unless a decidedly yellowish tone is wanted, the result 
is apt to disappoint. It is, however, less obtrusive than 
white, and always in better harmony with the landscape, 
either in the vernal or winter season. A yellow house 
with green blinds is perfectly harmonious in itself, and 
with its surroundings ; yellow being almost the only color 
which harmonizes perfectly with all the shades of green 
and all the shades of brown. 

There are, in all communities, timid persons who can 
not bear criticism ; who, in matters of taste, have no well- 
grounded opinions, but are controlled entirely by the de- 
cided expressions of their stronger-minded neighbors. To 
such the writer would recommend, in house-painting, the 
use of those colors which are so entirely neutral as to dis- 
arm criticism. Variety is, however, most desirable, and no 
two houses in a village should be painted alike, supposing 
all to be painted well. Exterior house-painting affords a 



62 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTINO, AND GRAINING. 

good opportunity for the expression of individuality, and 
every man should, in some particular, express himself differ- 
ently from his neighbors. Fortunately, the alphabet of color 
is inexhaustible, so there exists no necessity for uniformity. 
The custom which has heretofore much prevailed, namely, 
of painting groups of buildings, belonging to one homestead, 
of uniform color, is not a custom to be honored. Every 
member of a group of structures should have its individual 
color, as it has its own form and size. One general tone 
should pervade the whole, but each should have its dis- 
tinctive color, except where it may be desirable to hide or 
diminish some of the lesser buildings. That will best be 
accomplished by painting such of the same color as the 
main, or principal, building. As a rule, the principal 
building should present the lightest shade. A very light 
yellow tint, showing more or less of the red ray, is suitable 
for painting houses which are partially concealed by foliage 
— which look out upon the public through masses of green 
of every hue. It accords admirably with any of the greens, 
from the brightest hue of the willow to the darkest green 
of the pine. It is a bright, cheerful tint, sunny — but not 
glaring, like white — warm, harmonious, and agreeable, par- 
ticularly in a bare, winter landscape. It is not recom- 
mended when the house is a conspicuous object in the 
landscape, isolated, unscreened by trees — being, under such 
circumstances, liable to the same objections as wliite. The 
strong reflective power of yellow causes this color, when 
viewed in large masses, to present a staring appearance. 
For buildings so exposed, the drabs or gray tints are pref- 



EXTERIOR HOUSE-PAINTING. 63 

erable. These tones of color, too, wherein the yellow ray 
predominates, are the only ones suitable for exterior paint- 
ing which harmonize with green blinds. No theory, how- 
ever well elucidated, can teach the art of properly combin- 
ing colors and tints for decorative and ornamental pur- 
poses. -Such knowledge must come from practice and 
observation, and the eye alone must be consulted as to 
what is good. 

The foregoing directions, theories, or suggestions, as 
the case may be, are given under the impression or convic- 
tion that they will affect, in the way of instruction or 
education, and be useful mainly to, owners of houses who 
reside at greater or less distances from the larger centers of 
population — of country-houses, so called ; and with such 
owners the writer would have a little plain talk before con- 
cluding this chapter, assuming that his forty-seven years 
of constant experience and practice in this matter invests 
him with the privilege of offering advice, without becoming 
obnoxious to the charge of vanity or presumption. 

Pine-wood surfaces must, in the nature of things, pre- 
sent, in exterior weather-boards, clapboards, moldings, and 
plain work, more or less of imperfections in the way of 
knots, and sap, and resinous exudations. The life of the 
pine-tree is the sap, which hardens to turpentine on expos- 
ure to the atmosphere, and the dead wood always retains 
more or less of this resinous substance. Unfortunately, 
this *^ gum-resin" is incompatible with the oil used for 
outside painting, which will certainly dissolve it ; and the 
resin in solution will, in turn, as certainly destroy the 



64 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

paint. This is, no doubt, a bad state of things ; and, un- 
fortunatel}^, tliere is in outside work no good remedy for 
it. (The reader is requested to note carefully what is said 
on this subject in Chapter IX, under the heading of ^^New 
System," etc.) 

The so-called remedy is no remedy, for the reason that 
it proves in the end worse than the evil it is intended to 
cure. A coating of shellac-varnish is sometimes applied to 
the knots and pitchy places ; but this application, which 
serves moderately well on interior work, proves an entire 
failure when used on exterior surfaces ; for the sun and 
heat will reveal these spots in spite of all efforts to conceal 
them. Time, and the elements, will certainly work a cure ; 
but every house-owner does not care to wait this slow pro- 
cess. In such cases the evil must be borne as best it may. 
The owner of an old house is certainly well rid of it. The 
practice of the writer is, to expose new pine-wood to the 
action of the weather-forces for one season before painting ; 
that is, one summer and winter through. This not only 
remedies the evil in question, but it does much more in 
the way of good results. The weather corrodes, roughens, 
oxidizes, the planed and smooth surface, and corrugates 
the same, thereby giving the paint, when applied, some- 
thing to hold, to cling to. The tooth of Time eats out the 
wood, and also renders inactive and innocuous much that 
the pine contained Avhich had a natural tendency to hasten 
the destruction and lessen the durability of the paint. A 
common practice among builders is, to have the painter 
follow the carpenter with the brush and pot, so that the 



EXTERIOR HOUSE-PAINTING. 65 

wood may be coated as soon as the hammer leaves it. This 
is done, no doubt, with a view to lessen the shrinkage of 
the wood — a most absurd theory, truly. One may as well 
attempt to arrest the rushing waters of Niagara with a 
wicker dam as to hope to prevent, or lessen, in one hair's- 
breadth, the shrinkage of soft wood. Every hygrometric 
change in the atmosphere increases, or lessens, as the case 
may be, the bulk and dimensions of dead pine-wood, though 
it may be heavy with successive coats of paint. Every man 
knows, who has lived in a furnace-heated house, how the 
soft-wood doors will swell to tightness in the moister at- 
mosphere of summer, and shrink to rattling openness un- 
der the dry heat of the furnace-fire and the closed doors 
and windows. In view of this,, what vanity to hope to 
arrest the shrinkage of pine-wood exposed to the burning 
fervor of our summer sunshine ! As well hope to crystal- 
lize water without increasing its bulk, or cool hot iron 
without contracting its dimensions ! From what has been 
said, the conclusion may be drawn that satisfactory results 
are not to be looked for in the first outside painting, with 
oil-colors, of a new wooden house. We know, as a rule, 
that the practice is, with those who build houses, to have 
the painter follow the carpenter as soon as possible ; and a 
manufacturer of paints should be the last to deprecate 
this custom. We are free to confess, however, that we 
do not anticipate any appreciable diminution in the con- 
sumption of paints because of the facts herein given. We 
rest in the conviction that the owner will paint his new 
house just the same as if nothing had ever been said to 



66 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

the contrary ; that the builder will smile in derision of 
our theory, and the painter will treat it with the utmost 
contempt. Therefore, since we must and will paint our 
newly-planed wood, how "best to do it" presents itself 
as the most important question. Certain rules as to time 
should be heeded or listened to, and certain conditions 
should be observed. Much of the flaking, peeling off, 
cleaving of paint from wooden surfaces is, not because of 
any defect or shortcoming in the material, but because 
the paint, though properly applied, is not applied at the 
right time, and when the conditions are favorable to a 
good outcome. If paint be put on a piece of wood, the 
pores of the same being saturated with water, the chances 
are that the paint will not adhere tenaciously to that sur- 
face. Why ? Because the spaces which the paint should 
have filled were already occupied with a substance which is 
the universal solvent ; and the paint could find no perma- 
nent lodgment, from the fact that no two material objects 
can occupy the same space at the same time. The water 
pushed the paint from the wall ; that's all there is of it. 
The important question of ivhat to use, is next in order ; 
and thereby hang a great many tales. Your village painter 
being called in consultation — not yet having become a 
convert to the doctrine of ready-made colors — will say, 
with most amusing dogmatism: "No — no — no! No 
mixed colors for me. I can make my own colors, and do 
it better than another, because I know my trade." To 
this action on the part of the painter no reasonable ex- 
ception can be taken, for all handicraftsmen are as proud 



EXTERIOR HOUSE-PAINTING. 67 

of their acquisitions in the way of knowledge and of 
learning as of their manual dexterity. To know, and to 
do, is their just and proper pride. These objections are, 
however, becoming less and less frequent every day ; and 
the painters themselves are fast becoming converts to the 
theory that ready-made colors relieve them of what has 
heretofore been the drudgery and vexatious part of their 
trade ; and the proof is constantly before their eyes that 
colors, mixed as aforesaid, do not fade so quickly as do 
colors made by tinting with white-lead, at the moment 
of using the same. The reader will understand, once for 
all, that when we speak of these colors we have in mind 
the paints manufactured by responsible parties, who have 
been long enough in the business to have learned, by 
practice and experience, what mixtures will give the best 
results — what to use and what to avoid ; and not the 
thousand-and-one so-called "mixed colors "put upon the 
market by parties irresponsible, ignorant, without educa- 
tion and without experience — men who essay paint-mak- 
ing before they gravitate to their natural level of agents 
for life-insurance, or wnnging-machines. 

In selecting a paint, it will be safe, as a rule, for the 
purchaser to distrust claimants for favor just in pro- 
portion as they are thrust upon the public by loud and 
windy advertisements, high-sounding titles, and brag, 
blow, and bluster. Fortunately for the purchaser, the so- 
called "rubber paints" do not contain any "caoutchouc," 
and the "fire-proof" paints do not contain any "asbes- 
tus," or other fire-proof substance. "Good wine needs no 



C8 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

bush " ; and, as a rule, stuff offered for sale to the public 
is devoid of any real value or intrinsic worth just in pro- 
portion as it is extensively advertised. No dealer in specie, 
or true coin, ever advertised his business to the extent of 
two hundred thousand dollars a year. Quack-medicine 
venders do that. 

To come back to our ^* plain talk." We suppose a 
new house in the country, presenting exteriorly pine-wood 
boards, clapboards, moldings, trimmings, and cornices, 
more or less elaborate and ornamental. The painting is, 
or should be, a matter of prime importance, because the 
beholder will receive his first imj^ression rather from the 
color than the form. Architectural beauties may be spoiled 
by bad coloring ; and defects may be lessened, or hidden, 
by a proper exhibition of well-selected or well-chosen tints. 
In this work, fancy can not anticipate the fact ; and the 
most skillful composer in colors can not, under novel or 
untried conditions, say, with certainty, what will be the 
effect of any proposed arrangement, for the reason that 
the eye alone must be consulted as to what is good. In 
this matter of painting exteriors with colors, an ounce of 
practice is worth a pound of theory. Any tint, hue, or 
shade may be selected for the main or body color — not, 
of course, positive colors, or extremes^and the contrast- 
ing colors may be made to harmonize therewith ; but this 
will be discovered in practice, and must not be taken for 
granted because of any theory, no matter where and when, 
and by whom, promulgated. The writer does not hope ta 
make any converts to his theory and practice of presenting 



EXTERIOR HOUSE-PAINTING. 69 

the pine-wood surface to tlie action of tlie weather-forces, 
for a year, unpainted ; but he would impress most strongly 
the importance of giving the wood time to dry before ap- 
plying the paint. To the dry wood, then, give a coating of 
thin paint to all. parts, of one color — the color selected for 
the finish — the main or body color. The reason for this 
is, that it is useless to waste time in putting on two colors, 
when one will serve all good purposes. Having the selected 
tint on the main house, one may experiment with the trim- 
mings, and find out, in actual practice, what will give the 
most pleasing effects in the application of the companion- 
colors, both by contrast and analogy ; in other words, by 
the use of the same color as the body-color of darker tone, 
or by the use of a different or contrasting color, as a warm 
brown with a cold gray or a neutral drab. Better effects 
can be produced by the use of three colors than with a less 
number. For instance, suppose a neutral tint for the main 
color, with a darker tint for the trimmings. These would 
harmonize, of course, by analogy, or because they are alike. 
The introduction of a third, different, and much darker 
color than the others — for instance,' a rich neutral brown, 
or red brown, as Indian red, or Tuscan red, producing 
thereby a harmony by contrast — is recommended. The 
third color must, however, be exhibited in small quantity, 
as compared with its neighbors. 

The succeeding coats of paint should not follow each 
other too rapidly in outside painting. The first coat should 
stand, at least, one week — ten days, or even two weeks, 
will be better — ^before the application of the second coat ; 



70 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

and, if a third is to be applied, tlie same time should be 
given as between the first and second coatings. The use 
of yery dark colors is not recommended, for reasons which 
include both taste and economy. A very dark-colored 
building, exposed to the direct action of the sun, absorbs 
the heat-rays, and the atmosphere in and about it will be 
at a higher temperature than under other conditions. The 
wooden surface becomes heated almost to burning under 
the rays of our bright summer sun, and the boards dry and 
warp, and split and shrivel, under the heat-force. Red 
shingle-roofs are specially affected, and often become leaky 
because of the absorption of the heat from the sun. Very 
dark-colored buildings do not harmonize so well with the 
general landscape as do those of a lighter tint, and so be- 
come hard features therein. Such a st3de of painting is 
better avoided by general house-owners. 

As a parting word, the writer would most emphatically 
warn any would-be purchaser of paints, for his own use, to 
avoid the numberless chemical and other compounds which 
are daily offered in ever-increasing variety. If these com- 
pounds are what they claim to be, they are what the house- 
owner does not want ; and, if they are not what they claim 
to be, there is fraud on the face of the business. Nothing 
has yet been discovered, in the way of durability and every 
other good quality, that can for a moment compare with 
the oil of flaxseed as a vehicle or medium for preparing | 
pigments for external house-painting. Linseed-oil paints I 
are good enough, and, with good enough at hand, it is ] 
vanity to be looking for something better. [ 



CHAPTER IX. 

NEW SYSTEM OF INTERIOR HOUSE-PAINTIXG. 

The painting and repainting of the interiors of our 
houses may properly be classed with the disagreeable neces- 
sities of domestic economy. Disagreeable, because of their 
interference with the orderly process of daily routine — of 
its costliness, and the unpleasant odor which exhales from 
the painted surface, and because of its supposed unhealth- 
f ulness. The writer has been, for many years, of the opin- 
ion and conviction that the almost universally ado]3ted and 
accepted practice in the art of house-painting is not in ac- 
cordance with the general advancement and improvement 
of the age. Let it be borne in mind that these remarks 
apply to the use of white and colored pigments in the orna- 
menting, beautifying, and utilizing, so to speak, of the wood 
and plaster surfaces of interior domestic architecture. 

To best set forth what there is in the present system 
which needs reforming — or, perhaps, eliminating — let us 
proceed to examine it in detail. Suppose a new house, 
well rid of the plasterers, and turned over by the joiners 
into the hands of tke painter. The usual mode of pro- 



72 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

ceeding on the part of tlie latter is, to coyer the wooden 
surface with a coating of white-lead, thinned to a proper 
consistency for application with the oil of flaxseed, or 
linseed-oil, as it is more generally named. . To produce a 
moderately satisfactory result, this process must be three 
times repeated; and, as some days — say three or four — 
must elapse between the successive coats, and a week or 
more to complete the final drying process, not less than 
about twenty days will have been consumed in the work of 
painting alone ; and many weeks must pass by before the 
house-atmosphere will have become clear of the unpleasant 
odor which exhales from the paint in its gradual harden- 
ing or drying process. If, after this lengthened and tedi- 
ous operation, the result were satisfactory, and the sur- 
face, which has been produced at such a cost of time and 
money, gave promise of stability and permanence, there 
would be less of necessity for seeking out or inventing 
some system which shall be free from the evils inherent to 
the present one. 

It is now pertinent to inquire how far short the present 
system comes of what may reasonably be demanded in this 
age of improvement. 

The soft pine-wood in common use in the construction 
of what is called the wood-work of our houses, such as 
doors, shutters, casings, base-boards, etc., presents more or 
less of knots and other imperfections, which contain resin- 
ous matter, the nature of which is incompatible with the 
oil used to thin the paint for covering the surface. Conse- 
quently, the oil, which is a ready solvent of the resinous 



NEW SYSTEM OF INTERIOR HOUSE-PAINTING. 73 

matter, ente-rs into combination with it, decomposing it, 
and forming a substance which discolors the white pig- 
ment to such a degree as to deprive it of its power to cover 
and conceal these imperfections. This evil, too, is a grow- 
ing one, as the pine-forests disappear more and more rap- 
idly under the increasing demand for timber, and the (to 
that species of vegetation) destructive march of civili- 
zation. Therefore, every year, less of choice is left in the 
selection of timber for joiner's- work, and materials are 
used which a few years ago would have been utterly re- 
jected for such purposes. The common remedy for this 
evil is the interposition of some substance which shall act 
as a shield between the oil and the resin, and keep them 
from actual contact. A varnish made of gum-shellac 
dissolved in alcohol is the best material yet discovered to 
prevent the discoloration before mentioned ; but one appli- 
cation is hardly sufficient, because the action of the oil 
reveals many places which the eye failed to discover before 
the application of the first coat of paint. This may be 
remedied, in a measure, by giving a coating of varnish to 
the painted surface ; but the remedy is not absolute, as the 
dissolving action of the oil continues after the paint is 
supposed to be hard and dry ; and discolorations appear, 
from time to time, to such an extent as to seriously im- 
pair, if not destroy, the uniformity of the painted surface. 
In addition to this evil, which inheres in the wood itself, 
is the gradual darkening of white-lead paints thinned with 
oil, when not exposed to the bleaching influence of direct 

sunlight. For thi^ there is no remedy but to dispense 

4 

% 



74 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

with the use of linseed-oil in the last or finishing coat, 
and the substitution of oil of turpentine (spirits of turpen- 
tine) — or the partial substitution, rather, as there still must 
be a portion of linseed-oil used, or the paint would have no 
more adhesive power than if mixed with water. The par- 
tial substitution of the drying-oil with the volatile oil of 
turpentine lessens the tendency of the paint to turn yel- 
low ; but the remedy is little better than the evil it is in- 
tended to cure, because the adhesive and water-proof char- 
acter of the paint is, to a great degree, destroyed thereby, 
and the washing and wij^ing of the painted surface, in- 
dispensable to cleanliness and neatness, soon remove the 
paint, and bare spaces on the most handled parts of the 
wood-work are the unavoidable result. Nothing is more 
common, in-doors, than revelations of bare wood around 
door-handles and much-used j)ortions of the wood-work of 
frequented rooms, while all the rest of the painted surface 
is quite unworn. An entire rej^ainting is the only remedy 
for such a condition. 

No person, whose knowledge comes from experience, 
will hesitate to agree with the writer in the declaration 
that, all things considered — as costliness, loss of time, and 
other attending discomforts — painting, that is, the ordi- 
nary painting" and repainting of our interiors, is satisfac- 
tory neither in the process nor in the result. To abandon 
one's domicile for weeks, or to remain in an atmosphere 
which is sickening, or at best disagreeable, during the 
operation of repainting, with the knowledge that the fresh- 
ness of the beautiful white or delicate tints, so pleasing 



limV SYSTEM OF INTERIOR HOUSE-PAINTING. 75 

to the eye, will hardly outlive the unpleasant odor of the 
drying paint, is certainly good and sufficient cause for the 
inquiry : '' Can not a better system than this be invented or 
discovered — a system which shall include all that is good 
in the present, and exclude most of all that is bad ; which 
shall introduce what is required, and banish what all will 
so readily dispense with ? " 

It would seem pertinent, now that we have presented 
the shortcomings of the present practice, to inquire what a 
system should include to commend it to general favor, and 
insure its more or less speedy and general adoption. 

First in importance, but last to be ascertained, is dura- 
bility, unchangeableness in color and substance ; smooth- 
ness of surface, to cause foreign substances to adhere to it 
with the least possible cohesion ; sufficient hardness to pre- 
serve its integrity under the unavoidable and constant wip- 
ing and washing ; and sufficient tenacity and elasticity to 
enable it to resist accidental knocks and blows, and to 
insure it against cracking, or separating, as hard varnish is 
apt to do after long exposure. It must possess, in a good 
degree, body, covering or hiding quality, to conceal the 
wood under the least possible number of coats, and give 
uniformity and homogeneousness to the work. It must 
resist the discoloring property which inheres in the wood, 
and the darkening, yellowing, external influences, either of 
domestic gases, or whatever other atmospheric agencies tend 
to produce that result. It must dry or harden so rapidly 
that new pine-wood may be finished ready for use in not 
more than four or fin^e days — that is, the succeeding coats 



76 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

should follow on consecutive days. Lastly, it must work 
easily and flow smoothly under the brush, and not require 
any extraordinary skill in the handling, as no paint can 
find favor with professional painters which requires un- 
usual skill or labor in its application. In short, to fulfill 
all the requirements of a good paint, it must dry quickly, 
cover well ; present a smooth, hard, unyielding surface ; 
be water-proof and dirt-proof ; spread easily, smoothly, 
and evenly under the paint-brush, and retain its tint, 
whatever discoloring influences it may be subjected to. 
The finished surface must be of such a character that a 
simple wiping with clear water and a soapy cloth shall re- 
move all finger-marks and other ordinary discolorations. 
** Scrubbing of paint'' should be taken out of the category 
of a housewife's duties. The paint should reach the hands 
of the consumer, be he professor or amateur, in a liquid 
state, requiring no mixing or other manipulation, except, 
perhaps, a stirring with a stick, to render the whole mass 
of like consistency throughout. 

It will be understood that we are treating the subject, 
not as it concerns or affects the few, but the masses ; not 
the wealthy citizen who has the means and conveniences of 
repainting within his easy reach, and who must, in obe- 
dience to the dictates of fashion or taste, adhere to that 
custom which rigidly requires all painted surfaces to be 
flat, dead, without gloss, and non-reflective to the last 
degree, but the average town and country householder, 
who can not, for many reasons, decorate his domicile as 
taste and fancy may suggest. It can not reasonably be 



NEW SYSTEM OF INTERIOR HOUSE-PAINTING. 77 

denied that, where appearance alone is important, a flat, 
non-glossy, painted surface, in-doors, is more beautiful and 
more delicate than painted surfaces which reflect the light, 
particularly in white or light tints ; but this kind of paint- 
ing is costly, and in the least degree fulfills the conditions 
which, in the oj)inon of the writer, the average householder 
requires and demands. 

The new system of interior house-painting in practice 
requires certain conditions which are entirely essential to 
its full success. The condition precedent is, that the paint 
shall not, as a rule, be applied to an unprepared surface of 
new pine-wood. The preparation, which will be described 
after, being an economical process, needs no apology on the 
score of cost or trouble. The following detailed process, 
whereby the " new system " is to be rendered practicable, 
will be made so plain that any person with a slight knowl- 
edge of how to use a paint-brush, not a practiced j^ainter, 
may adopt it ; not, however, with the best results, be- 
cause, with this, as with every other system, the best re- 
sults come through the best knowledge and the most 
skilled manipulation. 

First, it is proposed to apply the new system to the 
interior surface of a house finished with ordinary pine- 
wood. The unpainted wood must receive, j)reparatory to 
painting, a liberal flowing coat of shellac-varnish. This 
coat effectually kills all knots, pitch, and sap. It fills the 
pores of the wood, and, for all practical purposes, is 
worth more than two coats of ordinary i^aint. The cost 
of the varnish is not great, and of applying it but a 



78 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

trifle ; but, as it is worth ten times its cost, and insures a 
good result in the end, no more need be said on that sub- 
ject. This yarnish-coat will dry in an hour, and the work 
will be ready for puttying. Ordinary putty will not do 
for this. The putty must be prepared at the time of 
using. To make it, take from the can a sufficient quan- 
tity of the paint to be applied to the work, be it white 
or colored, mix with common whiting to a proper con- 
sistency, and use a putty-knife in stopping the holes and 
crevices. The stopping or puttying being completed, 
brings the work to a readiness to receive the first coat of 
paint. The preparatory step in the painting will be a 
thorough stirring of the paint, so as to make the material 
of uniform consistency. Next, pour whatever quantity 
may seem best into a clean paint-pot. Flow on to the 
work with a brush, and leave as much paint on the sur- 
face as will stay there without running. Next day but one, 
apply the second coat of paint as before. The work now 
gives a smooth, uniform, glossy, and water-proof surface. 
The finish will be found far superior in solidity and much 
more homogeneous than the same number of coats of best 
white-lead, as commonly applied, and, if the result be satis- 
factory, there need be no more discourse on that head ; but 
we suppose a better surface yet be required, and the ut- 
most perfection of the system be demanded. The applica- 
tion of a third coat of paint completes the job, and gives 
the best painted surface that can possibly be produced by 
any reasonable expenditure of time and money. The sur- 
face will clean like French china. It will improve by 



NFW SYSTEM OF INTERIOR HOUSE-PAINTING. 79 

washing and wij^ing. It will be found hard enough to re- 
sist any ordinary wear, yet elastic enough to stand without 
cracking or chipping. We think we speak with modera- 
tion when we declare our belief that one jDainting under 
the '^new system" will outlast four paintings under the 
prevailing one. 

The question of economy now presents itself — a most im- 
portant consideration, this question of expense. It must not 
be supposed that we can have all these good and desirable 
qualities without paying for them. Yet the results here- 
tofore described can be brought about with no extra outlay. 
The cost of painting under the ^^new system" is no 
greater, perhaps, than under the old ; but when the ques- 
tion of economy, in its most comprehensive aspect, is held 
up to view, the new system has altogether the advantage. 
Enumerating the advantages, we have — the less time re- 
quired to dry the paint and make it fit for use ; the supe- 
rior smoothness and water-proof character of the surface, 
whereby the cleaning is rendered easy ; its durability under 
repeated washing, wiping, or scrubbing ; its non-liability 
to discolor under the influence of ordinary domestic gases, 
smoke, and other discoloring influences, common in every 
dwelling ; its tenacity, wearing properties, and the infre- 
quency of its necessary renewal. All these good qualities 
combined render it, in the best sense of the word, the most 
economical process ever adopted. 

Directions which must be observed and obeyed : 
Strain the paint! Let the pail or pot out of which 
the paint 'is to be* used be clean and free from dust or 



80 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

motes. Tie over the top of tlie pail a joiece of common 
Swiss muslin, such as is sold in the dry-goods shops at 
about twenty-five cents a yard, and pour the paint through 
it. Maybe there will be nothing caught in the strainer. 
If so, the error will have been on the safe side. In such a 
proceeding the old saying, ^^An ounce of prevention is 
worth a pound of cure," has peculiar significance. Keep 
the muslin strainer under water, and it will serve a good 
many times. 

Do not leave the paint exposed in an open can or pot. 

Be sure that the brush is clean. It is always well, 
where the brush has stood for a time in water, unused, to 
wash it out well in turpentine before putting it into the 
paint. The best brush for applying the paint in question 
is the commonly-used bristle brush. For extended flat sur- 
faces, a flat brush, known to painters as a kalsomine-brush, 
is recommended. 

There seems to be no further explanation necessary in 
elucidation of our theory. The new system of painting 
must, of course, stand or fall by reason of its inherent 
merits or demerits. If it shall prove in others' practice 
all that we have proved it in our own, it must necessarily 
find favor. Like all new things, however, it will in many 
instances be thoughtlessly, carelessly, and unjustly con- 
demned. Failures, necessarily growing out of want of 
care, non-compliance with plainly-written rules and direc- 
tions, unskillfulness in handling, and many other good and 
sufficient reasons for failure, will be laid at the door of the 
unfortunate paint, and, like the scapegoat, it will be made 



NEW SYSTEM OF INTERIOR HOUSE-PAINTING. 81 

to bear the sins of many. That, however, is all anticipated 
by the author of the '^New System" ; and, in spite of it 
all, he calls attention to the same, in the fullest confidence 
that, notwithstanding these unayoidable drawbacks, there 
is certain success awaiting its introduction. With the fol- 
lowing brief summary of the rules and modes of operation, 
the theory is offered, and commendation is asked, only in 
proportion as it shall fulfill what is claimed for it ; 

1. Do not apply the paint to an unprepared surface of 
new pine-wood. 

2. Do not use ordinary putty in stoj^ping the nail- 
heads. 

3. Use a putty-knife in stopping the nail-heads and 
crevices. 

4. Strain the paint before using. 

5. Old painted work should be clean, and well rubbed 
with pumice-stone, before applying the new paint. 

6. Do not leave the paint exposed to the air in an open 
vessel. 

7. Do not rub the paint out, under the brush, as with 
ordinary color, but flow it on like varnish. 

8. Put as much paint on the surface as will stay there 
without running. 

9. Before applying the paint to new work, flow on to 
the wood, with a paint-brush, a liberal coat of shellac-var- 
nish. 

10. The more the paint is washed, the better it will look. 
It may be washed with cold water and a soapy cloth on the 
third day after being finished. 



82 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

11. It is not poisonous, or in any wise disagreeable or 
detrimental to health. 

12. Bedrooms may be slept in, during the operation of 
painting, without fear of unpleasant results. 

These paints are presented in liquid form, put up in tin 
cans of various capacities, containing from five gallons to 
so small a quantity as one quart. The sample-card in- 
cludes the various colors and tints suitable for in-door 
painting. 



CHAPTEE X. 

WHITEWASHIN'G OR COLORING WALLS AN^D CEILINGS — 
CALLED KALSOMINING. 

This simple operation is sometimes mystified, or made 
occult, under the appalling title of calcimining, or, as 
generally rendered by the professors of the art, kalsomin- 
ing. This terrible word, enough, in its sight or sound, 
when not understood, to make "the knotted and com- 
bined locks to part, and each particular hair to stand on 
end," is as harmless as Bottom in the play when its mean- 
ing becomes known to the startled auditor who first hears 
or sees it, perhaps in connection with a painter's bill of 
magnificent proportions. Calx, or lime, is the root out of 
which grows this formidable verb, or noun, as the case 
may be, and to calcimi7ie is, in plain English, to ivliite.- 
imsh ; and, if the material be colored, the operation is the 
same — only it is then brought within the category of the 
Dutchman who would have his walls "whitewashed mit 
blue." This common and simple operation, namely, the 
whitewashing of walls and ceilings, is so much a matter 
of course, that the* average householder does not deem it 



84 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

worthy of investigation, and does not seem to care to un- 
derstand what the operation includes. Yet, from a sani- 
tary point of view, it is a subject of prime importance. 

The promulgation of Professor TyndalFs theory of 
'* Fermentation and Disease" is, in the opinion of the 
writer, the most important announcement since the dis- 
covery of oxygen by Dn Priestley in the latter part of the 
eighteenth century. Indeed, so far as it relates to the ma- 
terial welfare of the human race, it may prove the most 
important the world has ever listened to. The question 
has already been asked, no doubt, by the reader, what pos- 
sible significance the theory can have in this connection. 
Much. The paint for the million has been, and will con- 
tinue to be, lime and water. This water-paint, when prop- 
erly prepared, has many good and desirable qualities. It 
cleans, it whitens, thereby bringing in light, which is 
wholesome, and good, and indispensable in the best de- 
velopment of human nature, and probably other animal 
natures. Indeed, so important an element is light, that to 
be deprived of it is almost to be deprived of existence. All 
dark growths are sickly, and savor of the earth. Sunshine 
is necessary, not only in the moral world, but is, as well, 
a physical necessity ; and any theory of painting which 
ignores this fact should be distrusted. It is not good to 
live in dark dwellings ; it is not wholesome to sit in dark 
rooms ; and the only fit occupants of gloomy, sunless 
abodes are sickness, or sorrow, or sin, or shame ! The 
writer has witnessed with lamentation the growing disposi- 
tion on the part of those householders who claim to be the 



KALSOMINING. 85 

best, the leaders in society and fashion, to adopt the use of 
dark hues and shades in interior color-ornamentation. It 
will be kept in mind that the average householder has, aa 
a rule, no fixed or definite opinion or purpose as to what 
he wants, but is, on the contrary, almost wholly governed 
or persuaded by the taste, or opinion, or dictum of the 
decorator, or upholsterer, or furnisher who is at and for 
the time *^the mode." We believe that abodes and dwell- 
ings, rooms and apartments from which the sunlight is 
excluded, are not as good homes or abiding-places for hu- 
man beings as are those where the sunlight has free access, 
and where the light of heaven abounds. Suppose the 
effect of these entering rays of heaven's light be to send 
to their holes the bats, and owls, and bugs, and other un- 
canny things ; it will, at the same time, expose their dark 
ways, and enable us to shut them out, so they shall find 
ingress no more. This digression is for the purpose of 
more fully impressing the importance of the use of light, 
white, or nearly white tints in water-painting, or white- 
washing, or *^ kalsomining," as one may choose to name 
it. Lime is, we repeat, and must continue to be, the paint 
for the million ; and well it may be, as it includes many 
good and desirable qualities or properties. It covers well, 
cleans, sweetens, and disinfects, and costs almost nothing. 
Any room with plastered walls and ceilings may be made 
neat, sweet, tidy, and wholesome with a little labor and 
less cost, by the use of lime-water paint. How to do it ? 
It is easily done, and a very simple operation. So : pro- 
cure from the shop where such articles are sold a quan- 



86 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

tity of lump-lime — mind, lump-lime — not lime in powder, 
which will be more or less air-slaked. These lumjDs must 
undergo the process of slaking by or through the applica- 
tion of water ; cold water is good enough ; but the water 
must be poured on the lum]3s not all at once, but as the 
changing conditions require. The lump or lumps should 
be placed in a tight pail or pan, as may be convenient, and 
wet with water, which the thirsty stone will eagerly drink 
up. For a minute or two, or more, no change will be per- 
ceptible, although a wonderful chemical change is going 
on nevertheless. The water, having been heated by this 
chemical operation, will exhale from the stone in the form 
of vapor, and a slight change in the appearance of the lump 
will be perceptible. The slaking may be said now to have 
fairly commenced, and more water must be given, and more 
by degrees. The process will continue until the lumps 
shall have become entirely disintegrated, have fallen into 
powder of snowy whiteness, and with the water will boil 
like an open tea-kettle over a brisk fire. This boiling 
process must be carefully watched, as the water is thrown 
oS very rapidly in the form of vapor and steam, and the 
tendency of the mass is to dryness. When the miniature 
craters begin to form and solidify on the surface of the 
mass, more water must be added ; and when the ebullition 
ceases, the whole may be stirred thoroughly with a stick, 
and thereby rendered entirely homogeneous. Being cool, 
a portion of it may be taken . and thinned with water to a 
proper consistency for application wdtli a whitewash-brush ; 
the thinner the better, so the wall be solidly white and 



KALSOMINING. 87 

spotless, and not streaky. If the wash be applied too thick, 
it will show a sandy surface, and be apt to flake or chip off, 
and will have a tendency to turn yellow. This wash — the 
lime being properly slaked and properly applied — will have 
in itself sufficient adhesive power to keep it from rubbing 
off when brought in contact with the hand or garments, to 
which it is, of course, constantly exposed. 

The practice of water-painting, commonly called "kal- 
somining," is in this wise : The base of the water-pigment 
is known to all as chalk, which is a soft, friable carbonate 
of lime, containing more or less siliceous matter and other 
impurities. These impurities are removed by grinding the 
chalk under a heavy edge stone which slowly revolves on a 
circular bed. The bed is surrounded by a water-tight tank, 
into which flows a constant stream of water. The particles 
of the crushed materials, agitated by the stone in its mo- 
tion, are temporarily held in suspension by the water, and 
flow off with it into large sunken vats, a number of which, 
placed side by side, are connected by troughs ; the overflow 
of the first vat is received by its nearest neighbor, and so 
on until all the vats become filled. The vat farthest from 
the mill will, of course, contain the finest deposit of all, 
from the fact that the purer material will be longest held 
in suspension. The deposited mass, when of proper con- 
sistency, is lifted from the vats and thrown upon thick, 
roughly-shaped blocks of chalk, which absorb a portion of 
the water, and in a short time so harden the cakes of whiting 
that they may be handled. They are then taken from the 
blocks and dried byexposure to the air in a kind of lattice- 



88 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING, 

framework. Paris-white is produced by the same method, 
but the material used is a finer, harder kind of carbonate 
of lime. This article is used for the painting of ceilings 
and walls in the better class of work. It will be remem- 
bered that this washed and purified chalk does not possess 
in itself the adhesive property of the lime-wash as described 
above, but, on the contrary, will be readily transferred to 
anything which may be brought in contact with it. To 
prevent this, gelatine in some form is added to the pigment 
to impart the adhesive power which the material lacks 
per se. In plain white ceilings sulphate of baryta, known 
as barytes, may be used with whiting or Paris-white. The 
following is the best mode of proceeding in such work we 
are capable of giving. The preparation of the wall for re- 
ceiving the paint is, however, of prime importance, and 
that preliminary operation will be first described. We will 
suppose the wall to have been papered (that is, covered with 
paper-hangings), and further, that the removal of the paper 
has revealed cracks in the plaster more or less formidable in 
number and extent. If these cracks be so extensive as to 
require, in filling, the services of a plasterer, the labor of 
that craftsman must be had and obtained. A plasterer ac- 
customed to this kind of work does not need to be told how 
to do it. Yet, supposing a case w^here the cracked plaster 
must be removed, and the task must be performed by the 
painter, the mode of operation is in this wise : Cut away 
clean down to the laths, and fill the opening with mortar 
made of plaster and water, no lime or sand. This filling 
should not be flush with the surface of the wall, but hoi- 



KALSOMINING. 89 

lowed out and depressed so as to receive another filling. 
This should stand a day or two to dry and harden, and 
then be filled flush with the surrounding surface with white 
mortar mixed with plaster-of- Paris, and nicely smoothed 
with a trowel. 

The ordinary mode of procedure in the preparation of a 
wall for painting is to *' point up '' ; that is, to fill the holes 
and cracks with a putty composed of equal parts of plaster 
and common whiting mixed with water and glue-size (that 
is, a weak solution of glue in water). The proper tools for 
this work of filling are a broad-bladed putty-knife or a 
small-pointed trowel and a water-brush, as the parts to be 
operated on must be kept wet ; otherwise, the dry wall will 
take the moisture so quickly from the putty or filling as to 
prevent the necessary adhesion of the new with the old ma- 
terial. To insure the best results, the cracks should receive 
a second '^ going over" after the first application shall have 
had time to dry, in a measure. This filling will stick in the 
small cracks better than a preparation where lime is used, 
and may be worked upon at once ; whereas, a preparation 
where lime is present will be apt to turn the paint yellow 
if painted before the mortar-filling be fairly dry. 

Next in the order of proceeding — and a most important 
part of the process — is the application of a wash which shall 
furnish the proper * Aground" or substratum on which the 
water-color shall rest and remain. This wash will have 
been prepared beforehand, and be ready for application 
so soon as the stopping process shall have been concluded. 
This wash or sizing, as it is called, is made thus : One 



90 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

pound of white glue, one half pound of powdered alum, one 
quarter pound of bar-soap, white or brown, as may be con- 
yenient. These ingredients are to be dissolved separately 
in boiling water, and when the solution of each is com- 
plete, the soap-solution will be poured into the liquid glue, 
and to this the alum-solution will be added, slowly stirring 
the mixture all the time with a stick. This compound will 
be reduced or weakened with cold water to a proper consist- 
ency for application with a whitewash-brush. Care must 
be taken to touch every portion of the surface with this 
solution, to insure uniformity in the painted surface. All 
this preliminary work is supposed to have been performed 
with closed doors and windows on a fine bright day, and 
being finished, the doors and windows should be thrown 
open so as to make the surface ready for the coat of water- 
paint as quickly as possible. 

The preparation of the paint is as follows : To fifteen 
pounds of Paris- white made with water into a stiff paste, 
smooth, and thoroughly mixed and incorporated, will be 
added one half pound of white glue in solution. This sup- 
poses the wall to be painted white. If a color be required, 
the coloring-matter must be added to the paint before the 
addition of the glue -size. The coloring pigment may not 
be put into the thick paint in a dry state, that is, in dry 
powder, but be first wet with water and thoroughly mixed 
and manipulated till there shall be no lumps in it, and then 
in the form of a thin wash be incorporated with the white 
mass. The glue then may be added, and the whole thinned 
down with water to a proper consistency for application with 



KALSOMINING. 91 

a kalsomine-brnsh. In applying this water-paint a differ- 
ent style of manipulation is adopted from that commonly 
and properly practiced in oil-painting. That is to say, the 
water-paint on the wall must be left as the brush lays it on. 
No attempt must be made ^* to lay it off," as the phrase 
goes, to streak it so that the brush-marks may be even all one 
way, and parallel each with the other. It is recommended 
— a pure white wall or ceiling being the object — to add to 
the white mass a little ultramarine-blue previous to the 
addition of the glue-size. To dissolve a pound of white 
glue so as*to obtain a perfect solution, such as is required 
for ^^kalsomining," is not an easy task. The material is 
stubborn, and will not readily solve. The easy way to 
bring it about is to pour ujoon the glue in a tight vessel 
sufficient water to cover or immerse it. Let this stand 
overnight, and the pouring upon it in the morning of 
boiling water will almost instantly give a perfect solution. 
In making a shade or tint for wall-painting in water-colors, 
it must be borne in mind that the color dried upon the 
wall will not be half as dark as in the mixture. For ex- 
ample, a tint where the blue ray is very decided in the 
mass of paint will dry out almost to whiteness on the wall. 
In cases where the wall is very much discolored, patched, 
unequal in surface, very hard in some places and soft and 
spongy in others, the easiest way to make a foundation for 
the " kalsomine " is to apply previously a thin coat of oil- 
paint. 

The next step upward in this kind of painting is dignified 
as frescoing, miscalle'd fresco-painting ; which it is not in a 



92 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

proper sense, but rather ornamenting, or decorating, with 
water-colors. This material, carbonate of lime, gives with 
colored pigments tones and shades the most delicate and 
the purest possible, from the lightest tint to the deep pur- 
ples, reds, and browns. It is, therefore, more suitable and 
to be preferred for such work to oil-pigments, which are 
not only more fugitive in color, but which will, in the very 
nature of things, discolor, darken, and turn yellow and 
dingy. The attempt will not be made here to teach this 
art by written rules and directions. It can only be studied 
by the eye and learned through that organ. Example and 
practice are the only teachers worth heeding. In the best 
examples of domestic architecture this style of coloristic 
decoration is so common that plain walls and ceilings are 
now the exception and not the rule. This branch of paint- 
ing is earnestly recommended to the attention of those who 
are striving to reach a place among artists, as the practice 
of it affords opportunity for the display of fine artistic 
talent. 

This question of the finishing, or coloring, or painting 
of the wall in the rooms where we live is important and 
significant in more than one respect. JEsthetically viewed, 
it is important ; but, from a sanitary point of view, infi- 
nitely more so. We have not now in prospect the health, 
as affected by colors through the medium of the eye, but 
the health as possibly affected by the materials used for 
such purposes, either in themselves or as they may be 
v/rought upon by independent forces. Paper-hangings, 
which cover the walls of so many dwelling-places, because 



KALSOMINING. 93 

of the paints which color them, are supposed by many to 
be sources of direful ills and diseases. So far, this theory 
must rest on mere assumption, as no case of sickness has 
yet been traced directly to this source. The writer has 
been at some pains to investigate this poisoning theory, on 
the assurance of its advocates that these direful springs 
of "woes unnumbered" do not exist in the paper, but in 
the pigments which are used to color and ornament the 
same — Paris-green having been fixed upon as the offending 
material. This question will be found somewhat fully dis- 
cussed in succeeding chaptei^ on " Paris-Green as a Pig- 
ment " ; but, as we have a theory of our own to propound, 
we must allude to the subject again now and here. The 
case of poisoning most directly traceable to this cause 
occurred in London, and the facts were given to the public 
in the form of a report from a certain medical expert, 
eminent, as a matter Of course, to a public board which is, 
or was, the equivalent of our Board of Health, or Health 
Commission. The learned doctor found the walls of this 
"chamber of horrors" covered with figured and painted 
paper, and among the many colors he detected — horrible to 
relate ! — Paris-green, or something which looked like that 
deadly material. In the interest of science and the cause of 
humanity, the order was given : " Strip from the walls that 
painted death, and subject it to the analysis of my crucible, 
my acids, my alkalies, my precipitates, and my test-paper." 
The report — give me your ear, and 1 will whisper the 
sad tidings ! The doctor found in the ashes of this inciner- 
ated paper poison enough to kill— how many ? We have 



94 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAmTING, AND GRAINING. 

forgotten just how many, but a dozen men^ women, and 
children. Therefore, the occupants of this deadly chamber 
had been poisoned by the P^ris-green present in the paper- 
hangings. 

Ordinary mortals, not doctors, would have resolved the 
question thus : As was found in the paper-hangings all the 
green arsenite of copper that ever was probably put there, 
it follows as a matter of course that no poisoning or sick- 
ness could have been brought about through that material. 
The poisoning, or sickness, we recognize as a fact. The 
cause may have been in the room, in the house, in the 
street, in the neighborhood. If in the apartment, do not 
look for it in the pigments which figure or disfigure the 
paper. Look rather behind the flimsy covering, where 
mass after mass, coat after coat, of wetted flour in the form 
of adhesive paste has been piled up from year to year to 
rot and ferment in the moisture and warmth of a heated 
atmosphere, and to fill the walled-in space with seeds of 
disease which find favorable conditions for development in 
the throats and lungs and stomachs of the unfortunate 
dwellers therein. If you would remove the cause of dis- 
ease, tear off the rotting sham, the painted pretense, which 
seems to be the thing it is not ; scrape and clean the walls, 
wash thoroughly with water wherein is present carbolic 
acid or its equivalent, and paint with lime-water pigment, 
and you will give health and life,' and light and sweetness, 
where all was dank and noisome before. Paper-hangings 
are offered, artistic in invention and design, elegant in style 
and finish, and to their proper employment in interior 



KALSOMININO. 95 

ornamentation not a word is offered in objection. AVhat 
we object to is the covering up, the burying of filth with, 
or under, painted paper — a cheap way of temporarily dis- 
posing of nastiness ; and, while we are not of those who 
believe the odors which exhale from a stable or compost- 
heap can not be breathed without fatal results, we do believe 
that insidious dangers lurk around us, '^botli when we sleep 
and when we wake." 



CHAPTER XL 

PARIS-GREEjq" AS A PIGMEi^^T. 

The beautiful pigment known in this country under 
the commercial name of Paris-green, in England as em- 
erald-green, and on the Continent as Sclieele^s green, is, 
technically or scientifically speaking, an arsenite of cop- 
per, and consists of about three parts of copper to seven 
parts of arsenic. 

Paris-green came into use in this country about thirty- 
five years ago, and reached its maximum of consumption as 
a paint some twenty years after. From that it fell into dis- 
favor ; and there are to-day, throughout the country, many 
painters who have never used a brushful of it. Two causes 
operated to bring about this result : first, the many dis- 
agreeable properties and poisonous nature of the paint ; 
and, second, the improvements which were made in the 
production of chrome-green. These, since the decline of 
Paris-green, have been put upon the market under all the 
names which ingenuity could invent or devise about which 
there hung a sound suggestive of greenness. Yet it is ever 
a repetition of the same old thing, a compound of Prussian 



PARIS-GREEN AS A PIGMENT. 97 

blue and clirome-3^ellow ; and the unfortunate fact con- 
nected with the use of this jpermanent color is, that it 
begins to fade or change almost the moment the painter 
gives it the finishing touch with the brush. This fact 
having been demonstrated, during the past twenty years, 
to the comprehension of the dullest understanding, there 
are signs and symptoms that the old favorite is again to 
come to the front ; therefore this disquisition on the use of 
Paris-green. 

It may be said, and with a good deal of pertinence, that 
the general use of green paints in this country evidences a 
meretricious taste ; and that the aim of those who take an 
interest in this subject should be directed, not to the pres- 
entation of brighter tones of this color, but rather to the 
discouraging of its general use in the external decoration of 
our domestic architecture. The answer to that proposition 
is as follows : We are treating this matter not from an 
sesthetical but from a practical standpoint. We look at it 
as we find it — not as we would wish to have it. 

In our bright, hot climate, outside blinds are a neces- 
sity, particularly for isolated houses, and, indeed, for all 
domiciles not in crowded city streets ; and, notwithstand- 
ing all that has been said and written to the contrary, the 
public sense demands that these appendages to our windows 
shall be colored green. Recognizing this fact, it becomes 
us to call attention to that material which can give most 
satisfactory results in the use of green pigments for exterior 
color ornamentation. 

There is practiced; in the matter of painting, generally, 
5 



98 HOUSE AND CARPdAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

a kind of so-called regard to saving, which, if exhibited in 
any other department of household economy, would be 
simply absurd and ridiculous. Imagine a house-owner 
contracting with a carpet-dealer to furnish him with car- 
pets, with no other stipulation than simply that the same 
should be of green color ! Yet thousands of house-'owners 
let out the painting of their blinds and shutters to those 
Avho will do the work for the least sum of money, without 
regard to the material to be used, except that it be green. 

Now, a set of outside lattice-blinds may be painted with 
a green costing fifty cents a pound, or with one which costs 
only fiye or eight cents. Both these alike will fulfill the 
requirements — that is, all will be green ; but those coated 
with the expensive color will retain their freshness and 
brilliancy for a long time, while the others will change on 
the first exposure to sunshine. 

Painting, so far as color is a jorime object, is done to 
please the eye; and, recognizing^ the fact that the public 
taste demands a green for outside blinds, we would have 
the pigment come into use for this purpose which offers to 
the eye the purest and most pleasing tone of that favorite 
color. Fortunately, we find united, in the material which 
is the subject of this article, the two most desirable prop- 
erties — namely, brilliancy and durability. 

The discovery of SclieeWs green is most important, for 
the reason that it gives to the painter a new pigment, which 
not only reflects the purest green rays, but which is com- 
paratively unfading and unchanging when exposed to the 
bleaching influences of light and other atmospheric forces. 



PARIS-OREEN AS A PIGMENT. 99 

So far, -this material fulfills all the required conditions. It 
is brilliant and permanent. But, alas ! that fact, so patent 
in Nature's workings — that grand principle of compensa- 
tion — is, unfortunately, nowhere more prominent than in 
colored pigments. We can not have the best without pay- 
ing all it is worth ; and, in this instance, Nature has put so 
many bars and penalties in the way as to severely limit 
and, in many cases, to prohibit the use of this most beauti- 
ful paint. 

As if to combine all the bad working qualities, Paris- 
green is not only coarse in grain and translucent (that is, 
without body or covering property), but it is a non-drier 
to the last degree. Vehicles, such as varnish, drying japan, 
patent drier, and all the liquid driers, seem to lose their 
peculiar qualities in presence of this brilliant and unap- 
proachable color. Its defects are many, its merits few; 
but these few throw all its would-be competitors so far in 
the shade, that it stands preeminent, unrivaled ; and for 
this reason must, in the opinion of the writer, again come 
into general use. 

As we propose to treat the subject with special reference 
to the merits and defects of this chemical product as a 
paint, a description of the mode of proceeding in its manu- 
facture will be omitted, except to simply note the fact that 
it precipitates from its solution in a crystalline form, which 
will account for some of its peculiarities of working when 
'aj)plied with a paint-brush. These crystals differ from 
ieach other in shape and size as do the grains of sand on the 
seashore ; and the paint may, in its form and structure, 



100 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

not inaptly be compared to that abundant material. Let 
the uninitiated painter imagine the difficulty of coating a 
comparatively smooth surface with a portion of fine sand 
mixed in oil, and he will have some idea of one of the 
most formidable difficulties in the way of the use of Paris- 
green as an oil-paint. But why not grind it fine, and 
so overcome this formidable objection ? Ay, there's the 
rub ! These crystals are transparent, and only reflect their 
beautiful color when unbroken ; therefore, it is absolutely 
necessary, in order to produce the best results, that they be 
put upon the work without further breaking or powdering. 
It may be a help rather than a hindrance to those who 
are unacquainted with the peculiar nature of this pigment, 
to associate it in the mind with some familiar substance, 
and so, by comparison, get a better idea of its nature and 
working qualities. Very fine sand, or smalt, such as is 
used in hour-glasses, seems more analogous to Paris-green, 
in appearance and granular character, than anything we 
can liken it to ; and the crushing of the crystals of the 
paint produces the same result as would follow the grind- 
ing of blue-glass smalt on a. stone under a muller. Just in 
proportion as the grains are broken they lose the property 
of reflecting pure green light. The difficulty of covering a 
surface uniformly with these particles of green, transparent 
sand can hardly be over-estimated ; and, if the work were 
to be subjected to close inspection, it would be almost 
impossible to complete it in a satisfactory manner. Fine 
paint will adhere to a painted surface with a tenacity en- 
tirely foreign to the nature of this sand-like substance. To 

1 



PARIS-GREEN AS A PIGMENT. 101 

sum up all its defects, we would say : Paris-green works 
badly under the brush ; is translucent, and therefore will 
not cover the under-coating ; has a most perverse habit of 
running away from the work after it has been put on with 
the utmost care ; and, as a drier, is the worst of all things. 
Much has been said having reference to the poisonous 
nature of arsenite of copper ; and, as this branch of the 
subject is important, we propose to discuss it in the light 
of experience, reason, and common-sense. One would con- 
clude—putting faith in the marvelous facts given to the 
reading world from time to time by scientists— that an in- 
halation of air which had been in contact with Paris-green 
would prove more deadly than the breath of the fabled 
upas-tree. Harrowing tales are periodically told of whole 
families being poisoned almost to death because of the 
presence of this terrible pigment in the paper-hangings. 
The reading of a paper at a recent scientific convention, 
on the possible consequences of the use of Paris-green in 
the destruction of the potato-beetle, called forth this re- 
mark from one of the learned professors : "There are well- 
authenticated cases of poisoning by arsenic through the 
Paris-green present as a stain on the wall-paper." Now, 
we submit that such a statement might have been expected 
from a medical doctor, whose practice and profession is to 
a degree, in the nature of things, empirical ; but from a 
scientist such a statement is surprising. Until it shall be 
shown that there inheres in this pigment a power to over- 
come the vis inerticB of the matter — to break the bonds 
whereby it is held to -the paper, and afterward diffuse itself 



102 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

as a vapor throughout the atmosphere — we hold that it is 
contrary to reason and common-sense to conclude that any 
case of sickness is because of the presence of Paris-green in 
the paper which covers the wall. Let it be borne in mind 
that much of the arsenite of copper used on paper-hangings 
is highly sophisticated, or adulterated, with sulphate of 
baryta, or carbonate of lime, or terra alba, or some other in- 
nocuous substance ; and that the quantity of arsenic present 
is very small. This question of quantity is highly impor- 
tant ; because, if it can be demonstrated that one of those 
reputed '^chambers of horrors" did not contain so much 
arsenious acid as is exhibited in a single bottle of chill-and- 
fever medicine, the poisoning theory must fail for lack of 
probabilities. No one, we hope, will contend that the mere 
presence of arsenic (as, for instance, the glass bottle which 
holds the stock of the apothecary) would produce paraly- 
sis, or any symptom of metallic poisoning. Such a theory 
would beat homoeopathy and spirit-rapping out of sight ! 
The uncontradicted assertion is public that arsenic may 
be administered in ever-increasing doses until the human 
system can bear frightful quantities with apparent im- 
punity. This being admitted, it would seem to follow that 
all the green arsenite of copper which would be present in 
any ordinary apartment as coloring-matter on the paper- 
hangings, might be eaten by members of the family with 
their bread and butter, in the course of a month, without 
danger of serious results. To render this poisoning theory 
reasonable, it must be shown, not only that the pigment 
has the property of volatilization 'per se, but that it has. 



PARIS-GREE^ AS A PIGMENT. 103 

moreoYer, the power to escape from tlie bonds which con- 
fine it to the surface of the paper — to break itself free from 
the tenacious medium which surrounds and incloses each 
particular crystal, and to float or fly in the atmosphere, 
and find its way into the system, either through the lungs 
or the skin, in such quantities as to produce the symptoms 
of poisoning by arsenic. 

There is no reason to suppose that this salt undergoes 
any change when exposed to the air ; but, on the contrary, 
there is proof positive and abundant that it is inert and 
unchangeable to the last degree, even as much so as quartz- 
crystals or silica. The writer has a sample of Paris-green 
which was made in England more than twenty-five years ago. 
It has been exposed every day to sunlight, and much of the 
time to the air, yet, so far as the eye can discern, it has un- 
dergone no change. It reflects the same bright-green color, 
has the same sand-like, granular character, and to all appear- 
ances is in the same shape and condition as when it first came 
to hand — as unchanged even as the glass vessel which con- 
tains it. Again, if Paris-green b^ volatilizable 'per se, how 
is it possible that workmen can live for years in good health 
in an atmosphere which must be, in the nature of things, 
perfectly saturated with this virulent poison — namely, the 
Paris-green factories, where thousands of pounds of it are 
spread out so as to expose the greatest amount of surface 
to the action of heated air in confined rooms ? It is not 
unusual in these factories to see sjiread upon drying-tables, 
at one time, from six to eight thousand pounds of Paris- 
green, the vapor rising from the same being like unto a fog 



104 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

in all parts of the room. The workmen go into these rooms, 
and stand around these tables, stirring the mass for hours 
together without any inconvenience, and frequently may be 
seen in cold weather sitting close beside a steaming-hot 
table eating their dinners. In the process of passing the 
dry green through bolting-cloths, the workmen stand for 
hours together breathing an atmosphere visibly colored with 
fine particles of green, and, notwithstanding the precau- 
tions used to prevent the inhaling of the dust, a considera- 
ble portion finds its way into the system through the mouth 
and nostrils. 

As said in the beginning, we '^propose to look at this 
question in the light of experience, reason, and common- 
sense," and, in view of the facts presented, we believe the 
reader will justify us in the declaration that no well-authen- 
ticated case exists of poisoning by Paris-green because of 
the presence of that pigment in the paper-covering of the 
walls of occupied apartments ; moreover, that this poison- 
ing theory is entirely baseless, unless it can be shown that 
arsenite of copper is fataLin small doses, yet harmless when 
taken in large ones. 

That Paris-green is a poison, and, when taken in suffi- 
cient quantities, a deadly poison, no one familiar with its 
composition will have the hardihood to deny. Too much 
care can not be observed in keeping, handling, and using it ; 
yet there is no sense in making a bugbear of it, and fright- 
ening people from its use by attributing to it qualities and 
properties which it does not possess. Paris-green, when 
employed as an oil-paint, is perfectly harmless, except that 



PARIS-GREEN AS A PIGMENT. 105 

it acts as an irritant in contact with the flesh if allowed 
long to remain so ; for example, when it is permitted to 
accumulate under and around the finger-nails. Every 
workman, however, is not obnoxious to this peculiar effect, 
and the irritation may in all cases be avoided by extraor- 
dinary care in washing the paint from the hands ; or pre- 
vented, by wearing gloves when using it. 

Paris-green may be used either as a body-color, or as a 
glazing in the way that lakes and carmines are used in 
coach and carriage work. Used as a body-color, it must 
be applied in successive coats, so as to conceal the under- 
neath (or ground) color. The mode of proceeding in this 
practice is as follows : The work, whether old or new, must 
first be coated with a body-green which, in tone of color, 
resembles most closely the Paris-green. This should be 
dry and hard before the application of the first coat of the 
finishing color, so that the last coat may " bear out " as 
well as possible, Paris-green having a tendency to fiat in 
drying, which is at times extremely annoying. As a glaz- 
ing, it may be put on over any color which fancy may dic- 
tate or suggest. The writer has produced most satisfactory 
results on a ground of yellow ochre, which is a dull orange- 
color. Any tone of brilliant green may be obtained through 
the use of Paris-green as a glazing, by the use of darker or 
lighter under-coats, ranging from the darkest green of the 
pine to the very lightiest hues exhibited in vegetable growths 
in the earliest vernal season. It will, of course, be brighter 
and purer in tone than any of the greens which Nature 
exhibits in natural* objects, and will make dull, by com- 



106 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING, 

parison, the brightest of the grass-greens, whether shown 
in well-kept lawn, or by country roadside, or in richest 
meadow-bottom. For the information of those unacquaint- 
ed with the significance of terms used in the shop, we would 
explain that glazing — used in reference to painting— means 
the putting on of a transparent color over a ground of 
opaque or body-color. It belongs particularly to carriage- 
painting. Those most beautiful scarlets, carmines, and 
crimsons, exhibited on the running-gear of fancy road- 
wagons and other wheeled vehicles, are produced in this 
way. In glazing, one or two or three coats may be put 
on over the body-color, as circumstances may seem to re- 
quire. The non-drying property of this pigment has before 
been referred to ; and, because of this, some days should 
elapse after the first coat of Paris-green before the finishing 
coat. It had best stand two weeks, or even longer, if there 
be no hurry for the work. The paint must not be too 
thin, and only as much must be put on the surface as will 
stay there without trickling. Carelessness in this has sad- 
dened the face of many an unfortunate painter who, com- 
ing to take a fond look at his work next morning, has 
found the bulk of his paint on the floor, and the rest hang- 
ing in bead-like drops to the lower edges of the blind-slats. 
Despair is the only proper refuge in a case of this kind. 

Among the many objections to the use of this material, 
we neglected to mention the cost — which is important, as 
Paris-green is the most exi^ensive color used in ordinary 
house-painting. It can not be spread out (extended) like 
body-colors (which will bear extreme grinding), by reason 



PARIS-GREEN AS A PIGMENT. 107 

of its translucency, its want of covering property. The 
prime cost of this green is about twice as much as chrome- 
green, under any of its endless names, and a much larger 
quantity is required to spread over a given surface. Its 
high cost, too, offers great temptation to extensive adul- 
teration with worthless materials ; and, as a rule, Paris- 
green ground in oil is not offered in a pure state. 

As mentioned in the concluding sentence in the first 
part of this article, we had been conducting a series of ex- 
periments with a view to preparing Paris-green for the 
hands of the consumer, freed from some of the objection- 
able features which have rendered it so formidable to the 
painter, and which have almost driven it out of use. We 
hoped to overcome its non-drying jDroperty to that degree 
that we could safely recommend clear raw oil for use in 
thinning, and to lessen, if not altogether do away with, its 
tendency to run, or trickle, from the surface ; and, what is 
most important, to present it in the fullness of its pure 
green color. Our course included more than one hundred 
experiments, and concluded by painting a set of blinds from 
the rear of a first-class city house. These were all accu- 
rately measured, and the paint in each of three successive 
coats carefully weighed. The cost, both of labor and ma- 
terial, will be given, so that the amount to be expended in 
a job of this kind may be known beforehand. 

We got the best results through applying the green as 
a glazing over a ground of yellow ochre, as before stated — 
one coat of body-color and two coats of Paris-green. In 
this, moreover, there must not be any extra effort made to 



108 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

cover tlie under-coat. A solid job must not be looked for, 
but a transparent glazing through which the body-color 
may be seen. 

This fact can not be too constantly kept in view, namely, 
that blinds are painted to please the sight and not the sense 
of touch ; and it is not of the slightest consequence how- 
ever rough they may be, so long as they fulfill the impor- 
tant requisition — which is, to please the eye. It must be 
borne in mind, too, that they are not to be viewed through 
a microscope, or with spectacles, but from a distance, as 
seen in their proper places, hanging to the window-frames. 
No matter how coarse or ill-conditioned they may look 
when standing in the paint-shop ; if they have a good effect 
when exhibited in their proper belongings, more need not 
be asked or looked for. Painters can hardly divest them- 
selves of the idea that work of this kind must appear well 
when viewed in close proximity. An artist, however, takes 
you away from the canvas, when he would exhibit his pict- 
ure, in order to get the best possible effect. Things viewed 
too closely often appear harsh and repulsive, but, when 
softened by distance, become lovely and enchanting. If 
objection be made that the surface of the work is rough, 
the answer will be : '^ What matter ? The coarser the better, 
so long as the best results of painting may be attained 
thereby. The work is not painted to be felt of, but to be 
looked at." 

Outside blinds, whether new or old, should have not less 
than three coats, and new blinds will be the better for hav- 
ing four ; that is, first a coat of blue or lead-color, then a 



PARIS-GREEN AS A PIGMENT. 109 

coat of body-color, followed by two coatings of Paris-green, 
used as a glazing. The lead coat may stand three days, 
and the second four or five days ; but two weeks should 
elapse between the first and second cbats of the finishing 
color. Do not sandj)aper the work in any part of the 
process, because the Paris-green will be less apt to run on 
a rough than on a smooth surface. 

A good, well-worn brush must be used in applying the 
Paris-green, but no extraordinary care need be exhibited in 
the effort to mahe it cover, that result being impossible, and 
not desirable. The paint must be thin enough to work 
easily, but not too thin ; and it should be frequently stirred 
in the pot, so that the coarser particles of the color may 
not escape, and be found in the end settled in a hard cake 
at the bottom. 

The coat of body-color, or groundwork, should bear 
out w^ith a kind of half-gloss. A little hard-drying varnish 
used in this coat will give a better foundation for the first 
coat of green finishing color. The two coats of Paris-green 
must be put on thinned with clear raw oil. No drier of 
any kind may be used in thinning, and boiled oil injures 
the delicacy and purity of the tone. 

Those painters who are apt to see ^'a lion in the way," 
when anything is presented out of the beaten track, will 
readily conjure up a host of difficulties in, and objections 
to, the use of Paris-green. *^What!" they will exclaim, 
"paint blinds with this poisonous stuff, which is so coarse 
that you must be constantly stirring it with a stick to keep 
it from sinking, and *so transparent that it will not cover 



110 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

even over its own color, and which threatens to run away 
from the work if a drop too much be applied ? " etc. Just 
60, timid disciple. But who ever yet got any good thing 
without working for it ? *'He that would win must labor 
for the prize ! " On the other hand, think of what will 
have been gained when all these difficulties shall have been 
surmounted. A color so brilliant, deep, rich, and velvety, 
that all other so-called greens grow sick in comparison, and 
give up even the pretense of being entitled to bear the 
name of green ; and then, so permanent, so durable, so 
unchangeable ! No fading out to faintness in the sunshine, 
and darkening to blackness in the shadow ; no two sides to 
every blind, one '^sicklied o'er with a pale" suspicion of 
color, and the other grim with darkness. This perma- 
nence, too, is not a matter of a single season, but continues 
right on, through winter and summer, from year to year ; 
and so long as a single particle of the pigment shall re- 
main on the painted surface, that single particle will con- 
tinue to reflect its original emerald color. Is the accom- 
plishment of such a result not worth some extra pains and 
labor ? 

The set of blinds before mentioned were of dimensions 
as follows : three pairs were ten feet long, three were seven 
feet long, three were five, and three four feet, respectively. 
They had a uniform width of twenty-one inches. It will 
be seen that these all were the equivalent of twelve pairs of 
blinds six feet six inches high by twenty-one inches wide, 
each pair. This would be about a fair average for outside 
blinds, as they show on town and country houses. These 



PARIS-GREEN AS A PIGMENT. HI 

blinds were first painted with a coat of dark chrome or 
body-green, about six pounds of color being consumed in 
the work. After standing four days, the first coat of Paris- 
green was put on. Fifteen pounds of green, as it comes in 
the cans when ground in oil, was thinned with six pounds 
of pure raw linseed-oil, and the whole of this mixture was 
consumed. After standing ten days, the finishing coat was 
put on, and in this were used nine and one half j^ounds of 
thick color and about four pounds of raw oil for thinning. 
The following recapitulation, given in figures, will show 
at a glance the cost of material for painting blinds with 
pure Paris-green : 

Tioelvc pairs, 6 fed G inches x 21 inches ; blinds painted three coats. 

1st coat, 6 pounds body color, at 25 cts $1 50 

„ , . ( 15 " raris-green, at 45 cts $6 75 

2d coat, ■{ ^ ,. ?. ^ ^ 



3d coat, 



{ 6 " raw oil, at 12 cts 72 7 47 

9^ " Paris-green, at 45 cts 4 27 

4 " raw oil, at 12 cts 48 4 75 



Total $13 72 



This gives about one dollar and fifteen cents as the cost 
of the paint for three coats on a single pair of six feet by 
twenty-one inches blinds. Of course, this is predicated 
upon the supposition that the very best material, prepared 
in the best manner, will be used. Indeed, nothing short 
of this will produce any such result ; and it is entirely safe 
to say that a good job of Paris-green can not be effected 
with the color as usually sold in the shops. No figures are 
given as to cost of labor, as this must depend, in a great 



112 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

degree, on time, place, and circumstances. An old and 
experienced city painter names three dollars per pair as 
a fair price for one coat of body-color and two of Paris- 
green on ordinary outside blinds. We would suggest to 
those painters who have never essayed a trial of Paris-green 
to make one trial, under favorable conditions ; and to those 
who have heretofore used and discarded it, to bring it back 
into use as soon as possible, because it is, after all, the only 
green for outside work which gives real satisfaction. 



CHAPTER XII. 

GRAIJ^IJs^G AS A FII^E ART. 

*^The Art of Imitating Colored and Fancy Woods, 
taught in Twelve Easy Lessons," would be a "taking" 
caption to this chapter, and some credulous souls would 
certainly believe it true. We are sorry to dispel such simple 
and childlike faith ; but a regard for truth and common- 
sense compels us to declare that, to reach the goal of suc- 
cess — in this as in all other branches of the art of painting 
— one must travel the long road of patient study, close ob- 
servation, and practice, practice, practice. To imitate with 
colors the veins, grains, and figures in a piece of fancy 
wood, requires the same faculties, the same development of 
perceptive power, the same care, and skill, and talent, as 
are required to portray the lineaments of the human face ; 
not in the same degree, perhaps, but in the same direction. 

As no two faces are alike, so no two pieces of wood are 
exactly similar. For this reason the grainer must always 
be a student, always a learner. Oak-wood, for example, 
presents all neutral browns, from Vandyke-brown to almost 
white. One may see in it a knot which is the color of 



114 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

charcoal, and albino specimens wliicli are quite devoid of 
color ; between these two extremes may be found every pos- 
sible shade of red and yellow brown. Light oak requires a 
groundwork of palest straw-color, while dark oak is best 
imitated on a ground of red, almost bright enough for 
mahogany. White oak is almost devoid of color, while the 
Western oak is quite a foxy red ; and no jury of expert 
grainers would agree as to what is the average color of the 
wood, because each one would have a prejudice or predilec- 
tion for some particular tone which he had unconsciously 
fixed in his mind, and which he had habitually accustomed 
himself to impart to his work. As a rule, light oak grain- 
ing presents too much of the yellow, and dark oak is repre- 
sented with too little of the red tone. In other words, light 
oak is made too bright, and dark oak not bright enough. 

The novice must not expect to make even a tolerable 
imitation of any fancy or common w^ood by the simple ap- 
plication of graining color to a proper ground. The opera- 
tion is threefold, and in some cases even more than that. 
Finished natural woods do not reflect their color superfi- 
cially altogether. They have depth, as well as tone and 
figure ; and, in colored imitations of the same, these facts 
and conditions must be respected, and the operation must 
proceed in accordance therewith. The requisites are : a 
solid, smooth groundwork, a coat of graining color on that 
whereby may be shown the grain and figures of the wood, 
and on that a glazing of transparent color to show the 
lights and shades, and to give the required depth and trans- 
parency. It must not be forgotten that the intent in grain- 



GRAINING AS A FINE ART. 115 

ing is not to represent the wood in its natural colors, but 
in tlie tones and shades it puts on when varnished or pol- 
ished. The cold, blackish gray of unfinished black-walnut, 
for Instance, is altogether different from the warm, reddish 
brown which this wood reflects when yarnished or polished. 
There is, too, a rich undertone of yellowish red, which 
glows out from beneath the surface, the presence of which 
would not be suspected in the natural growth as it comes 
from the planer. Woods, too, change color when exposed 
to the light and to other atmospheric influences, and put 
on a richer, mellower, softer tone with age and use. These 
conditions must be known and respected, too, if the learner 
would become a successful imitator of natural woods. In 
this, as in other branches of imitative art, Nature must not 
be followed too closely ; because Nature, in her endless 
variety, presents many specimens which the painter would 
rather avoid than imitate. 

The animal-painter would not select from the flock the 
shabby specimens to show on his canvas ; so, the imitator 
of fancy woods should select for imitation the best which 
Nature offers — those which are most pleasing to the eye, 
and most interesting as objects of study and observation. 
Natural deformities, except as curiosities, are not worth 
perpetuating. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

PAINTED IMITATIONS OF COLORED WOODS, TECHNICALLY 
CALLED GRAINING. 

The art of imitating the grain, knots, and colors of 
fancy woods is, like all painting not merely mechanical, 
acquired by study, close observation, and long-continued 
and constant practice. Success in this line is dependent on 
the possession, or deyelopment rather, of those faculties 
without which a person should hardly adopt this profession 
as a specialty. An eye prompt in detecting similarity in 
shades and hues of color, imitative power, and delicate 
nianii^ulation, are indispensable in the make-up of a good 
grainer. 

Formerly the house-painter was supposed to include 
among his accomplishments the art of graining as well as 
sign-painting, gilding, and all other branches of the trade ; 
but of late years it has become the custom for some to give 
undivided attention to those several branches for which 
they individually have, or seem to have, a special faculty, 
taste, or predilection. Therefore, certain workmen desig- 
nate themselves as ^^grainersto the trade," *' sign-writers 



GRAINING. 117 

to the trade," etc. This custom can obtain, of course, only 
in the larger places, there not being in small towns and 
villages sufficient work in any one branch to permit work- 
men to devote themselves entirely to a special department. 

To teach the art of imitating the grain of the various 
woods used in domestic architecture by a set of written 
rules and directions, would be as much an impossibility 
as to make a finished musician by teaching the theory of 
sound. Even a tolerable degree of perfection in the art 
can be obtained only by much practice and close observa- 
tion ; but there is a great deal that can be told, and much 
that can be acquired, more easily than by practice, the 
same being the knowledge experimentally gained by those 
who, with skill and custom, have become perfected in this 
particular branch of the art of painting. 

The disposition for grained work, which at one time 
declined materially, has of late years revived, and the fash- 
ion for this kind of painting is now more prevalent and 
general than ever before, the difference being simply that 
certain kinds of woods, as mahogany, rosewood, and maple, 
which were once much desired, have been supplanted by an 
affection for light and dark oak and black-walnut. The 
number and variety of brushes and other tools used in 
graining can be shown herein with sufficient accuracy of 
description to enable the novice to order what he will 
necessarily require in case he shall be disposed to practice 
the imitative art. 

Formerly the art of graining in oil-colors was prac- 
ticed by comparatively few, and the knowledge of the pig- 



118 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

ments and other materials used was a real or pretended 
secret. Tlie writer has seen a professed grainer involve 
himself in the utmost secrecy, and work in a mysterious 
way, when simply mixing common brown wax with heated 
oil and turpentine to make what is called "megilp." 
These little "tricks of the trade," the quackery of the 
professors, are much less common than in younger times. 
The printing age and the book-making mania have brought 
to light most of those occult compoundings, and placed 
what was once hidden knowledge within the reach of all. 
There is truly no trickery in art. Its best results are 
gained only by patient labor ; and the artist who claims to 
accomplish these by some secret process known only to 
himself, may be set down as a quack. In these, our times, 
not only are there no mysterious compoundings, but the 
would-be grainer does not of necessity require a knowledge 
of the simple names of the materials which he would use, 
because of the fact that ready-made graining colors, which 
require only to be thinned to fit them for use, are placed 
within his easy reach. Therefore, the greatest of the ob- 
stacles in the way of the practice of graining, by those who 
have not had the advantages of practical instruction in the 
art, is removed ; and the would-be grainer has only to learn 
the theory of "how to do it," and all the rest comes by 
practice and observation. 

AVhen and wherever in the following pages rules and 
proportions are given for producing certain tones and tints 
for groundwork, or for other purposes, the reader will 
bear in mind the fact that the looked-for results can not be 



GRAINING. 119 

reached by the use of materials which differ from those 
given, either in kind or qualit}^ Every painter should 
readily see the necessity of adopting some absolute stand- 
ard, otherwise we shall all be working in the dark. When 
we say raw Italian sienna tinted with white- lead will give 
the best groundwork for light oak graining, we beg the 
reader not to expect to produce that result with lead that 
is white-lead only in name, and with sienna which is a clay- 
colored mixture, as unlike the genuine Italian sienna as 
the sale of it is unlike honest dealing. No painter should 
ever purchase a package of ground color which does not 
bear upon it the name and guarantee of some well-known 
responsible manufacturer. The consumer should know, 
as a rule, that the ground paints sold throughout the 
country are not genuine. The packages do not contain, 
even in a highly adulterated state, the article, which is in- 
dicated by the label or brand on the exterior thereof. 

White-lead, so well known by its familiar name, is the 
most important article in the stock of the painter. Its un- 
equaled density, opacity, and easy working qualities, have 
made it the favorite pigment with the trade, and all at- 
tempts to supersede it have been, so far, entirely without 
success. The demand for it is always increasing, and new 
establishments are from time to time erected in different 
parts of the country to supply the growing want. No 
article in common use probably has been adulterated to 
such a shameful extent as has this indispensable pigment. 
The fact that its j^urity can be ascertained by chemical or 
mechanical tests, wliich are known only to the initiated, has 



120 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

rendered this adulteration easy, and its detection extremely 
difficult ; and to-day the only guarantee which the pur- 
chaser has of the genuineness of the paint is the name of 
the maker which the containing package bears. This, even, 
is not an absolute security, because the marks and brands 
of well-known manufacturers have been fraudulently coun- 
terfeited and imitated. White-lead is what is known in 
trade as a leading article. What sugar is to the grocer, 
white-lead is . to the seller of paints. It is almost every- 
where sold at a merely nominal profit ; and the tradesman 
readily accepts anything bearing the name of pure white- 
lead which he can sell at the price of the genuine article. 
The result is, a satisfactory enhancement of the seller's 
profit, but extreme disappointment on the part of the con- 
sumer. Thousands of tons of so-called white-lead are an- 
nually sold in the United States which do not contain a 
single grain of that material. A detailed statement of the 
ways and means whereby this fraud upon the consumer is 
effected, would seem hardly necessary here, and we rest 
upon a simple statement of the fact, as being all that is 
necessary or important. 

In giving directions for reproducing these tints, it be- 
comes, of course, absolutely necessary that some base of pro- 
ceedings be first established, otherwise our results would be 
as uncertain as the wind. It would be worse than vanity 
for the writer to give directions for the producing a given 
tone of buff, for instance, if the materials necessary to the 
mixture were not the same in quality as well as quantity. 
If the white, which must form the base and bulk of the 



GRAIXING. 121 

mixture, be not white-lead, but only a fictitious imitation 
of it, and the quantity of color necessary to reproduce the 
given tint be used, the result, of course, would be entirely 
unexpected. At the risk of being charged with unnecessary 
repetition, the writer would again call the attention of the 
consumer to the fact that all painting, to be done economi- 
cally, must be performed with the best materials. If white- 
lead be required to paint a house, get pure lead, at what- 
ever cost. If yellow ochre is demanded, get it pure, if you 
can. Every painter and consumer will do well to lay to 
heart the following axioms : 

1. The purer the paint, and the better it is of its kind, 
the less it costs to do painting, of whatever grade or degree. 

2. A job of painting, of whatever character, can be per- 
formed at a less first cost of money and time with the best 
rather than with the cheapest paints. 

Every man of common-sense can understand that buy- 
ing sugar which is half sand, because the nominal price is 
only two thirds that of sugar, is not an economical proceed- 
ing. Yet painters and other consumers buy paints every 
day which are more than half sand, or some other worth- 
less material, simply because the nominal price is less than 
that of pure color. It ought not to require a very brilliant 
intellect to comprehend the fact that, in distributing a pound 
of pure color through ten pounds of so-called ground paints, 
the consumer has to pay for ten packages instead of one, 
and ten freights and ten profits when he should pay only 
one. This digression is made in the hope of impressing the 
painter, once for all, with the absolute necessity of su]3ply- 



122 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

ing himself with the jiurest materials. With such the best 
results are possible. Without them we need hardly hope 
for success. As a rule, it will be well to avoid many-hued 
labels. These are often used with intent to deceiye. Truth 
can commonly be told on plain white paper. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

GROUKD AND GRAINING COLORS. 

Looking at a wainscot or wall of oak and black- walnut 
in alternate strips, one sees a yariety of tints, from pale 
yellow to light umber tone in the oak, and from light red- 
yellow-brown to deepest black-brown in the walnut. It 
becomes necessary, therefore, in order to avoid the extraor- 
dinary labor of making a ground for each separate width or 
strip, to put on such a color for the ground of either wood 
as will enable the workman to show the liglitest colors which 
the woods respectively present, trusting to a greater depth 
and body of graining color to produce the darker shades. 

The ground-color for light oak, maple, satinwood, chest- 
nut, and ash, may be the same. Black-walnut ground, of 
course, differs materially from the others mentioned, both 
in tone and depth of color ; but it would not be a difficult 
task for an expert to make a fair job of black- walnut on the 
maple ground. Attention is called to this fact to show that 
the color of the groundwork is, after all, of less consequence 
than it would seem, supposing it to be light enough, as its 
brightness can always be subdued by the use of a greater 



124 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

quantity of tlie dark graining-color and the glazing coat. 
It is, however, a matter of prime importance that the sur- 
face of the work shall be smooth, solid, and uniform in 
color, in order that the graining-color shall comb cleanly 
and wipe out clearly and brightly. The graining-colors 
also should be compounded of the best Italian siennas, or 
Turkey umber, or German Vandyke-brown, as the case may 
require. If common colors be used, such as are generally 
sold in the shops in the country, the work will present a 
muddy, cloudy appearance, alike inartistic and unsatisfac- 
tory. In the matter of economy, the best colors are alto- 
gether preferable, for the reason that a dollar's worth of 
the pure colors will be sufficient to cover a much larger 
surface than three dollars' worth of impure, so-called cheap 
colors. In the first case the best results are possible ; in the 
second they are utterly unattainable. 



CHAPTER XV. 



TOOLS KEQUIKED FOR GRAINING. 



There are certain tools and 
brushes indispensable in the 
production of painted imita- 
tions of fancy woods, without 
which even the most exjoert 
professional grainer would be 
at a loss, and would labor un- 
der difificulties. Yet it must be 
understood that such a work- 
man, through use and skill, by 
means of a cunning hand and 
practiced eye, may and does 
produce effects with means and 
appliances which the novice 
could hardly find use for. A 
good workman may work with 
indifferent tools ; but the un- 
skilled must avail himself of all the advantages which the 
best tools and materfals place within his reach. First in im- 




Badger-hair Blender or Softener. 



126 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 




i B 

yteel Grainiiig-Couib. 



portance, after the brushes necessary for applying the grain- 
ing-color to the groundwork, comes a badger-hair blender 




Piltod Maple Over- (or Top-) Graiucr. 



TOOLS REQUIRED FOR GRAINIXG. 



127 



and softener (a cut of which is shown on page 125) ; sec- 
ond, steel grain ing-combs. A set of these com^n^ises twelve 
combs, three of which are one inch wide, three two inches, 
three three inches, and three four inches wide. Each comb 
in the several widths varies 
from its companions in the 
size of the teeth, one in each 
of the four widths being fine, 
one medium, and one coarse. 
Formerly, a few leather combs 
were considered indispensable ; 
but now, when coarse comb- 
ing with clear, distinct grain 
is required, the result is effect- 
ed by the use of one of the 
coarsest combs, the teeth of 
the same being covered with a 
piece of cotton rag or cloth. 
This is in every respect the 
equivalent of a leather comb. 
This short list, with a top- 
er over-grain er (a drawing of 
which is given), comprises all 
the extraordinary tools re- 
quired, the rest being com- 
mon in and about every ordi- 
nary paint-shop, and consist- 
ing of a painter's duster, two or three flat bristle or fitch 
brushes, and a i)iece of clean cotton rag. For graining 




"'■'"M,i;,,iii(i,,i,w|[||,i|i|:|||iHiiiri,,|,[||M|||i't|i!|.i ii:'hii 

Oak Over- (or Top-) Graiiier. 



128 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

maple, a tool called a cutter is necessary, and that will be 
described under the head of ^^ Maple Graining." The cost 
of this set of grainer's tools will be, at the outside, say 
five or six dollars. It must not be understood that for 




CameFs-bair Cutter for Maple Graining. 

all kinds of work no other brushes are required or made 
use of, for the reason that very extended surfaces, such as 
large stores or warerooms, where the work is to be mostly 
plain, and wlien it is necessary to get over the largest pos- 
sible space in the least possible time, require the use of 
larger brushes. These, however, Avill be noted each in its 
appropriate i)lace. The reader will not take exception, 
certainly, to tlie remark that, to give the names and de- 
scrij^tions of the tools and brushes, is much easier than to 
teach the lesson of how to use them. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

LIGHT-OAK GRAINING. 

The ground-color recommended for the imitation of 
light oak is produced by the use of white-lead and pure raw 
Italian sienna. Golden ochre will do in place of sienna, 
but does not produce so clear and soft a tint. The too 
common use of chrome-yellow is deprecated, for the reason 
that the general tendency is to make light-oak grained work 
too yellow. It will be seen, by studying the natural wood, 
that it reflects, mainly, none of the chrome-yellow tone. 
The yellow observable in finished oak furniture is derived 
in a great measure from the successive coats of varnish used 
in the finishing process. 

The opinion obtains among professional grainers that 
the graining-color should be mixed with special reference 
to the ground. This is true in a measure, but has not so 
much significance as is generally ascribed to it. In fact, 
the graining-color is less important than the groundwork, 
as a fair job of both light and dark oak may be performed 
with the dark-oak graining-color, supposing the ground to 
be suitable in either case. In making a ground-color with 



130 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

wliitc-lead and raw sienna, care must be taken to procure 
the true Italian article, as the so-called American substitute 
will give a muddy color, quite unlike what is required to 
secure a good job. 

The beginner will not be led away with the flattering 
thought that his first attempt, however gratifying to his 
own self-love, will result in a very close imitation of the 
wood, which he will probably caricature rather than copy. 
■ The lights which he will vf\])Q out will stare stiffly at him 
when he steps back to indulge in a look at his handiwork, 
and the shades will frown as if in mockery of his maiden 
effort ; but patient labor and striving for success will over- 
come most obstacles, and the smallest amount of merit never 
goes wholly unrewarded. The study for the learner is not 
to cop.y at first the natural wood, but the examples of some 
first-class artist in this line. Mannerism should be avoided, 
and a habit of putting in always the same kind and show 
of work in certain places, as some do. Let there be the 
greatest variety consistent with good taste. Violent con- 
trasts are to be avoided. The same general tone of color 
will be preserved throughout. It will not do to have one 
panel on a door dark, the others being light. True, this 
might happen in a door of natural wood, but it would not 
be desirable. 

Referring to remarks on page 124 concerning the prepa- 
ration of the work for the reception of color, and suppos- 
ing the groundwork to exhibit the proper tint, and the 
learner to have supplied himself with a can of read3^-made 
graining-color, he is instructed to take therefrom what- 



LIGHT-OAK GRAINING. 131 

ever quantity may be required, to do the work in hand, 
covering the remaining color with turpentine to keep it 
fresh, and the can to exclude the dust and. to prevent the 
evaporation of the turpentine. That portion of the color 
intended for immediate use must be thinned with oil and 
turpentine to a proper consistency, which will be ascer- 
tained by trying it on the work. A portion of boiled 
oil will be required in the thinning, but only so much as 
may be necessary to hold the color back from drying too 
quickly. Except to secure this, there is no advantage to 
be gained in using it. The work will not be any more 
durable because of the use of an undue i:)ro2)ortion of oil in 
the thinning, and the varnish-coat will be decidedly better 
on a surface without gloss. Ordinarily, graining-color is 
mixed with reference to drying, so as to be ready on the 
following day for the glazing-coat. If it be desirable to 
grain and glaze and varnish on the same day, it may be 
done by the use of japan gold-size, or good jajjan drier ; 
but, as much of the japan in market now is made without 
shellac, its use is not advised, except in cases where the o]:*- 
erator is assured of its quality and genuineness. 

The beginner or learner will at first fall into the error 
of mixing his graining-color too thick — that is, he will use 
too little thinning ; but, as this is most easily remedied, it 
is preferable to the other extreme. The quantity of color 
required, for one side of a door is almost infinitesimal. Too 
much color will make the Avork look muddy and slovenly. 
It is common to ruh in — that is, paint — all the panels and 
panel-moldings before proceeding to put in tlie work, as 



132 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

the color wipes out better after it has set a little. If the 
color be quick-drying, however, care must be taken not to 
rub in too much at once ; because, in such case, the work 
will not comb well or wipe out cleanly. It will work 
*' claggy," to use the grainer's expression. That portion of 
the surface which is to receive the "veins" or "sap" must 
not be combed until after the work is put in ; while that 
kind of work called "dapiDles" requires the combing to be 
done before the wiping out of the lights. 

It will be observed that the " technical " or trade terms 
used throughout this work are those in common use among 
English grainers, for the reason that most of the best work- 
men in this line are Englishmen, who have brought with 
them to this country the knowledge and skill acquired on 
the other side, where a rigid system of apprenticeship ren- 
ders good workmen much more possible than with us. The 
laxity of our system, or rather lack of system, of appren- 
ticeship, is a bar in the way of turning out really finished 
workmen in almost any of the trades. 

Allusion has already been made to the difficulties in the 
way of teaching, by means of written words, any branch 
of art, a knowledge of which must, after all is said, really 
be acquired through tlie perceptive faculties. An liour of 
practical demonstration would be better than a volume of 
written instructions. To lead the half-taught learner 
toAvard perfection were comparatively easy ; but to teach a 
language that has no alphabet and no grammar may per- 
haps prove more fruitless tlian the writer even anticipates. 
With a view to the fullest elucidation of the process, and to 



LIGHT-OAK GRAINING. I33 

make it, if possible, comi^rehensible to the greatest novice, 
to him who has never seen a job of ^graining performed, 
it is proposed to begin with the ^'^ rubbing in" — that is, 
applying the graining-color with a brush — and continue the 
operation, in regular order of procedure, to its completion. 

The tools necessary in the first stage of the work are 
simply a moderately stiff brush, or sash-tool, for putting on 
the color ; a dry paint-brush, or painter's duster, for clean- 
ing up the corners, molds, and beads — supposing too much 
color may have adhered thereto ; a soft, clean, worn cotton 
rag for wiping out ; and a set of combs for the combing. 
These comprise all which are really required for the first 
operation. In practice, the term '^'^ rubbing in" will be 
better understood, the performance being much more like 
rubbing the color into the groundwork than like painting, 
in the ordinary acceptation of the word. 

All preliminaries being completed, it is now supposed 
that the door, that being the subject to operate upon, is 
ready with its well sand-papered coat of pale-straw ground 
for the reception of the coat of oil graining-color. This 
must be rubbed in with the paint-brush so as to present a 
uniform surface. The beads, molds, and corners should be 
stippled with the bristle-ends of a dry brush, so as not to 
look dirty and muddy, as they surely will appear if not 
properly cleaned up. Too much color on any part of the 
door will make it look ^^ blotchy " when finished. Care 
must be taken to have the color evenly distributed. In oak 
graining, it will be remembered, the grain is shown, not by 
adding a darker color, but by " wiping out," so as to leave 



134 HOUSE AND CABRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

the groundwork clean, the color which remains represent- 
ing the darker portion of the wood. 

The panels will first receive attention, and it is advised, 
as a rule, to show on them rather plain work. There will 
be space enough on the rails and stiles to show the veined 
work, and much elaboration is not recommended ordinarily. 
The corres2:>onding panels must be similar in character of 
graining, and all should present the same general appear- 
ance. The fact must be well understood that clean work, 
with simple straight combing, is much more respectable 
and workmanlike than an abortive attempt at display. 
Almost any man who knows the two ends of a paint-brush 
may, with proper ground and graining colors, turn off a 
job of grained work wliich will not offend good taste, even 
though it be not a very creditable imitation of the natural 
wood. 

Supposing the panels are to be grained, as has been sug- 
gested, the first proceeding in order, after the application 
of the color, is to wipe off a part of it in streaks, from top 
to bottom, with a rag held loosely in the fingers, so as not 
to wipe the wood clean ; then to comb each in its turn with 
one of the fine combs lengthwise, repeating the operation 
in a similar manner with a comb still finer than that used 
in the first combing. 

To this point the process will have been simply mechan- 
ical ; and such work may be performed by any house-painter 
who can paint a door with plain color in a workmanlike 
manner. Now it ceases to be mechanical, and becomes a 
branch of fine art. 



LIGHT-OAK GRAINING. I35 

The taking out of tlie lights is done by covering the 
thumb with a piece of cotton rag, and the thumb-nail be- 
comes at once the most important and useful tool required 
in the operation. The broader lights will be wiped out 
with the fleshy part of the finger, and the finer lines with 
the covered nail of that most useful member, which performs 
so important a part that we can hardly imagine a good 
grainer without at least one thumb. 

(The horn tool sometimes used for taking out the lights 
w^ill be described hereafter.) 

That portion of the rag which covers the thumb will, 
of course, soon become saturated with color, and so will 
cease to be effective in wiping cleanly. This necessitates 
the constant uncovering of the thumb, and the recovering 
it with a clean portion of the rag. When the whole of the 
rag shall become saturated with color, it must be thrown 
aside, and its place supplied with a clean piece. 

The first attempt will not, probably, prove very satisfac- 
tory, and the beginner will learn, if he learn nothing more, 
how difficult it is to perform what, at first sight, appears so 
easy and simple. In spite of his best efforts, the lights will 
not resemble the dapples in the natural wood ; but, as prac- 
tice only makes perfect, so i)erseverance only Avill deserve 
success. If his first effort shall suggest to the beholder 
anything better than quail-tracks and blotches, he may con- 
gratulate himself on his performance. 

Supposing the panels to be finished ''for better for 
worse," the moldings will be combed plainly, and the mid- 
dle rail, with the center, top, and bottom stiles, will come 



136 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

next in order. These are usually selected for the greatest 
display of work. The color will be first applied to the 
middle stiles, leaving the middle, top, and bottom rails to be 
rubbed in, each in turn, as the work proceeds. The two 
middle stiles will be finished before putting the work into 
the middle or broad rail. The color may be rubbed into 
the top and bottom rails at the same time as on the broad 
rail. In this order of procedure no care will be necessary 
in wiping the joints, and the color may lap over on the parts 
not rubbed in, to be cut off at the joints in the finishing 
stiles or rails, as the case may be. 

The necessity of keeping each piece composing the door 
distinct, and treating each by itself, will be obvious to the 
greatest novice in the art of graining. 

The work of wiping out with a rag will be continued 
in the sap or veined portion no longer than is actually 
necessary, as whatever can be done with the coarse comb 
will be a clear saving of time. In the sap or veined portion 
of the work the combing will follow the wiping out, and 
not precede it, as was the case with the panels. The top 
and bottom rails will usually be finished plainly ; that is, 
with coarse combing, but not of necessity straight grain. 
The outer stiles can be heavier and coarser than other parts, 
and this will finish the work so far as the oil-coat is con- 
cerned. 

The oil-graining is now set aside, and the job left to dry, 
to be ready for the glazing-coat, which should be done in 
water-color, supposing the intention be to varnish at once. 
Some grainers glaze with a portion of the same color as was 



LIGHT-OAK GRAmma. 137 

used for the first coat, but the use of water-color is Etrongly 
advised. Supposing this oil-coat to be well dried, a light 
rubbing over with a worn piece of fine sand-paper is recom- 
mended before the glazing. Colors ground in water, and 
put uj? in' wide-mouthed bottles, are now obtainable in the 
color-shops, and are more convenient and economical than 
the same materials prepared in the paint-shop. The proper 
glazing color for light oak is made with raw sienna, burnt 
sienna, and Vandyke-brown, in such proportions as shall 
be found best in practice, and the color must be used thin, 
and- the quantity used must be very small. The operation 
of glazing is most important, as a good job may be spoiled 
by unskillful manipulation in this process, as a poor job 
may be redeemed, in a measure, by skillful handling in the 
glazing-coat. 

Much may be done in this process, in the way of reme- 
dying any defect in the ground, supposing it shall be found, 
in finishing, not to have been just what was required ; that 
is, a yellower color may be imparted by using more of the 
raw sienna in the glazing-color — supposing a more yellow 
tone be desirable — or, a too yellow ground may be concealed 
by using more of burnt sienna and yand3'ke-brown. The 
color should not be thinned at once, as was the color for 
the oil-coat, but should be placed on a palette or a piece of 
board, and thinned by dipping the brush in water as the 
work proceeds. This is necessary from the fact that in 
some parts, as with panels, a very thin, light wash of glazing 
will serve, while on the moldings, and around the knots, and 
in the ^*sap" work, h much thicker coat will be necessary. 



138 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAmTINO, AND GRAINING. 

The brushes required for this part of the operation are 
a top- or over-grainer, shown on page 127, a badger-blend- 
er, on page 125, and a common pocket-comb. The water- 
color must be rubbed in with a stiff bristle-brush, and soft- 
ened with the blender, so as not to show any streaks or 
brush-marks. But one panel should be rubbed in at a 
time, as the thin coat of water-color dries almost as fast 
as it can be applied. The top grain, which is almost 
inappreciable, will be put in with the over-grainer, which 
must, after being dipped in very thin color, be combed 
with the pocket-comb, so as to separate the bristles into 
groups, which shall stand apart from each other, form- 
ing, as it were, a series of parallel, small, thin brushes. 
The over-grainer, in this shai^e, will be passed lightly from 
top to bottom of the panels, after which the blender must 
be used to soften the harsh lines and give indistinctness to 
the grain. Great care is necessary, in this operation, not to 
apply too much color, or the effect will be streakiness rather 
than the almost imperceptible grain required. The glazing 
or shading must be continued on the rails and stiles, as may 
be required by the character of the work. These should 
be darker than the panels, and the molding should be 
more deeply shaded than the rails and stiles. The glowing 
lights around the knots are wiped out of the glazing-color, 
and delicately softened with the blender. This brings the 
work up to varnishing, wiiich will be treated in a sej^arate 
chapter, and the utter impossibility of giving anything like 
a clear conception of this operation of glazing, by means of 
a verbal teaching, would seem to preclude the necessity of 



LIGHT-OAK GRAINING. I39 

any further words upon the subject. Enough to say, in 
conclusion, that it is to graining what light and shade are 
to the higher branches of the art of painting. It gives 
depth, and tone, and glow, and transparency ; and, more 
than any part of the process, requires the possession and 
development of those faculties which distinguish the artist 
from the mere mechanic. 

The object selected for the operation described was 
chosen for the reason that the greatest amount of work is 
usually done on doors, and a workman who can make a 
good job on this will find no difficulty in executing what- 
ever kind of wood-work may come under his hand. In 
wainscoting, or side-walls, composed of narrow, tongued- 
and-grooved boards of equal width, the custom is to put in 
less work, and to show a greater uniformity than is shown 
in the separate pieces composing a door. Coarse and fine 
combing, with here and there a strip showing dapples and 
sap-work, is the usual mode of giving variety to the strips 
composing the wall or wainscot, as the case may be. The 
glazing-coat, however, is mostly relied on to give distinct- 
ness and variety to the work. Some of the strips will be 
left without glazing, while others Avill be glazed more or less 
dark, as taste and fancy may dictate. As a rule, the boards 
or strips alternate with quite a degree of regularity, a darker 
shade between two light ones. This gives a much better 
effect than to have a group of dark ones followed by a group 
of lighter ones, or than an occasional dark strip in a group 
of lighter ones. A good effect is produced on doors and 
other paneled work by putting in the panels very light 



UO HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

oak, and the rails and stiles very dark red-oak, the mold- 
ings being in any case darker than the rails and stiles. The 
molding, if not too deep and heavy, may be painted with 
coach-black before varnishing, with a gold stripe in the 
inner flat portion of the same. This gold stripe makes a 
very good contrast with the light-oak panel, and sets off the 
black better than anything else. This work, however, re- 
quires a skillful hand, and is not recommended for novices. 

A summary of the foregoing instructions may prove use- 
ful to some readers who may not have seen a job of grain- 
ing performed, and we propose to give, in brief, an outline 
of the processes in the order in which they usually occur. 

The first requisite is a hard, well sand-papered surface, 
with a properly colored ground. 

The tools required are a paint-brush, for rubbing in 
the graining-color ; a set of steel graining-combs ; a paint- 
er's duster, or other dry bristle-brush ; and a rag, to wipe 
out the lights. 

Next in order is the graining-color, and the ready-made 
colors are recommended for all, esi^ecially for beginners. 
It may be well to state here that all graining-colors are 
compounded of raw and burnt Italian sienna, raw and 
burnt Turkey umber, Vandyke-brown, and drop-black, in 
varied proportions according to the requirements of the j 
occasion. It is impossible to give due proportions, for the 
reason that these materials, found usually in the jiaint- 
shops, vary so much in strength, quality, fineness, and con- 
sistency. 

The tools and materials being provided, the next in 



LIGHT- OAK G RAINING. 141 

order of proceeding is the thinning of the color. This 
can be properly learned only by practice. As a rule, un- 
practiced hands pnt on too much color. Use boiled oil and 
turpentine, and no more oil than is necessary to keep the 
color from setting too quickly. If the needs of the occa- 
sion require the color to dry very rapidly, use a small quan- 
tity of good brown japan or gold-size. 

Rub in the graining-color with a moderately stiff brush. 
In dappled work comb the surface before taking out the 
lights. In sap or veined work, comb after wiping out. 
When a stile crosses a rail, the rail being dark and full of 
work, the stile at the joint or line of contact should show 
plain combing, and be of lighter color, to contrast with its 
darker neighbor. This is a good general rule for all oak 
graining. The oil-coat should stand overnight to dry. 
Before glazing, rub the oil-coat lightly with a piece of fine, 
worn sand-paper. Use water-color for the glazing, for the 
reason, if for no other, that no time must necessarily elapse 
before varnishing. Eaw and burnt sienna and Vandyke- 
brown, in varying proportions, make the proper glazing 
for both light and dark oak. The tools required in glaz- 
ing are a water-color brush, a badger -blender, a top- or 
over-grainer, and a rag. 

Judgment, taste, skill, and practice are indispensal)le 
prerequisites to a good job of grained work. 

The before-mentioned horn tool, for taking out the 
lights in dappled work, is simply a straight piece of horn 
about an inch wide, and as thick as a nickel five-cent piece. 
The end, slightly rounded, must be beveled on both sides 



142 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

to a sharp edge, and kept sharp by rubbing it on a piece of 
sand-paper, as a carpenter sharpens a tool with a whet- 
stone. The hand not holding the tool must carry a piece 
of rag, as the horn requires wiping after every application 
of it to the j)ainted surface. The blade of a horn spatula, 
common in every apothecary's shop, offers the readiest 
means for providing one's self with sucii a tool as is above 
described. The ground coat must be well dried, on which 
the horn is used ; otherwise it will be cut up by the sharp 
edge of the tool. 

The directions given herein, both as to ground-tints 
and graining, are not presented dogmatically, but rather 
suggestively, as worthy of following by those who have no 
knowledge or idea of anything better ; and these words are 
not for those who are skilled in the art, but for the un- 
learned, the uninitiated — not to him wlio is able to be a 
teacher, but to him who is desirous of receiving instruc- 
tion. As a fine art, graining becomes subject to the rules 
which govern art generally, if it be admitted that true art 
has lines and bounds ; and, paradoxical as the utterance 
may seem, there is no hesitation in declaring that the best 
efforts or attainments in this line are not those which 
most closely resemble the natural wood. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

DARK-OAK GRAIXIi^G-COLOR. 

There is not a word to be said instructively under 
this heading which has not been fully given in the fore- 
going chapter. With the exception of the different ground 
and graining color, every w^ord used in describing the pro- 
cess in light-oak graining has equal significance in this. 

The ground for dark oak is made of pure white-lead, 
golden ochre, and royal red. Deep orange-chrome in j^lace 
of golden ochre is sometimes used for ground for dark oak, 
when a very bright tone is desired. The graining-color is 
composed of the same materials as the graining-color for 
light oak, viz., burnt sienna, raw sienna, and Vandyke- 
brown, differing only in proportion. 

The reader — he who would become a grainer, or he who 
would add to his stock of already acquired knowledge — 
must not suppose, because of his having the names of the 
materials required to make a graining-color, that he has 
only to procure a can of each of these at the shops and 
proceed forthwith to make what is demanded, both in tone 
and working quality. Unfortunately, the chances are de- 



144 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

cidedly against him, and he will, in a majority of cases, get 
what he does not want, rather than what he does want. It 
is a lamentable fact that the ground colors offered for sale 
throughout the country are not, as a rule, what they j^ur- 
port to be. 

The bulk of the so-called raw sienna is little better, if 
any, than commonest yellow ochre ; the burnt sienna is 
hardly better than Venetian red, while the Vandyke-brown 
is composed of what ? " Nor gods nor man can tell ! " 
Now, to require a workman to make a good job of graining 
with such materials is quite as unreasonable as was the 
requisition on the part of the Egyptians that the captive 
children of Israel should make bricks without straw. 

As a rule, dealers in paints buy ground colors bearing 
the names of the required articles, without regard to qual- 
ity ; that is, they purchase what they can buy most cheaply 
and sell most dearly, and it rests with the consumer to 
demand and receive that which he knows to be good^ or at 
least that which has a good reputation. In view of the fact 
that the most skillful and experienced painter can not do a 
job of plain painting well without good materials and tools, 
all will see the importance of the best materials to the un- 
practiced hand or the novice. 

It has been said before in these pages that hardly two 
professional grainers will agree as to the exact tone for 
ground for any one of the fancy or colored woods. In many, 
perhaps most cases, this fastidiousness comes more from 
willfulness, stubbornness, or vain conceit, than from reason. 
A grainer must indeed be weak in resources who can not do 



BARK-OAK GRAmmO-COLOR. 145 

a fair job of graining on any ground, suj)posing the same 
to be light enough and not decidedly off color. Many of our 
professed grainers are real artists, and execute with true 
artistic fervor ; while too many, alas ! are thoroughly me- 
chanical, and among these latter will be found those who 
are most captious and fastidious as to tints of ground and 
color. 

There are some who Avill read this book, no doubt, whose 
knowledge of color- harmony has not been improved either 
by study or practice ; and all readers may jDcrhaps be bene- 
fited by a few words on this most important subject. It is 
unquestionably essential that every painter should know 
what plain colors and tints may be used in harmonious con- 
trasts or combinations with the various painted imitations 
of fancy woods. Green is entirely unobjectionable ; in- 
deed, it forms a most pleasing contrast with light oak, 
satinwood, bird's-eye maple, chestnut, and ash ; but is 
discordant with mahogany, black-walnut, and rosewood. 
Blue is entirely harmonious with all these latter. Black 
harmonizes with all the woods, as does white ; but white 
with the lighter-colored ones is feeble and wanting. All 
the woods harmonize with each other, except black-wal- 
nut with mahogany and rosewood. Gold is good with all, 
but the contrast with the light-colored ones is not so brill- 
iant as with the dark-toned woods. The bright colors in 
these deaden the usually dull tones of black-walnut, and 
detract from it thereby ; whereas the contrast of the lat- 
ter-named wood with the light-colored ones improves and 
brightens all the contrasting tints and shades. 



146 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

Light and dark oak are best shown by themselves in 
contrast with each other, being too coarse in the grain to 
exhibit with good effect in combination with maple and 
satinwood. 

In color-harmony, generally, white and black harmonize 
with all colors but green. Gold is good with every color, 
shade, and tint, but especially rich with green, black, 
purple, carmine, and blue. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

BLACK-WALNUT GRAINING. 

This wood, now so common in every household, so exten- 
sively used in doors, wainscoting, and furniture of every 
description, has become the mode within the last ten or fif- 
teen years. Previously it was held in slight estimation, was 
used only for very common purposes, and no one dreamed 
that this cheap and common domestic tree would become 
the successful rival of the aristocratic rosewood and ma- 
hogany. 

In black- walnut graining no two workmen seem to agree 
as to what the prevailing tone should be. The wood itself 
presents so great a variety of tones and shades that, when 
the mind seems about to accept a certain shade as the best 
imitation of the natural wood, a sample presents itself 
which upsets all preconceived notions, and the inquirer 
finds himself ''all at sea again." The general tone of the 
wood, as seen before being worked, is a blackish brown, and 
the beholder would hardly suspect the presence of a rich 
red undertone, almost as bright as the glowing red of ma- 
hogany. Yet such is the case, and in almost any large 



148 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

l^iece of furniture some parts will show a decidedly reddish 
ground. This red glows out from underneath the brown 
surface, and can not successfully be shown in the graining- 
color. It must therefore be provided for in the ground- 
work, which should be sufficiently red to represent those 
pieces of the wood which exhibit the reddest tones of color. 

Black-walnut is imitated on every variety of colored 
ground, from straw-color to drab. We suggest, as the most 
proper tone for imitating this popular wood, a groundwork 
made of white-lead, with golden ochre and royal red and 
black. The reader will bear in mind the fact that there 
exists in this case no difficulty in covering and concealing 
with the almost black graining-color the underwork, how- 
ever bright it may be. So it will be best to err on the side 
of a too bright ground, rather than one which is too dull to 
represent the brighter specimens of the natural wood. 

There can be no question as to the mode of painting 
most proper for producing the best results in black-walnut 
graining. The wood is what is called soft-grained, and 
does not present the sharp lines and clear grain observable 
in light and dark oak. Therefore it can be best imitated 
in distemper-graining ; but as this process is more difficult 
than oil-graining, and requires more skill in successful 
manipulation, we shall treat it only incidentally, confining 
our teachings mainly to graining in oil. 

Supposing the groundwork to be of the right tint, 
the next proceeding is to go over the work with a coat of 
Yandyke-brown and drop-black ground in water. All the 
colors used in graining may be obtained from the dealer, 



BLACK-WALNUT GRAINING. 149 

ready ground in water, for less cost than would be involved 
in preparing the same in the paint-shop. 

This coat of water-color, while yet fresh, must be bro- 
ken into grains by stippling with a painter's duster or 
other dry bristle-brush. For the information of those who 
are unfamiliar with this word, or the operation which it 
signifies, we would remark that stippling is simjoly the 
pouncing of the whole surface with the ends of the bristles 
composing a painter's duster or other brush. 

When this stippled coat of distemper-color, so called, 
has become dry, the work will be ready for the application 
of the oil graining-color.^ It is taken for granted that the 
workman will have supplied himself with a can of ready- 
made graining-color, and that no mixing is required, ex- 
cept to thin with boiled oil and turpentine in such pro- 
portions as practice alone will teach properly. It need 
only be said in this connection that just enough of oil 
should be used to prevent the color from setting too quick- 
ly, when the intention is to wipe out the lights with a rag, 
after the manner of oak graining, which is not the mode 
we shall recommend. It will be borne in mind that in 
black-walnut graining the imitation is always darker than 
the natural wood, for the reason that wood of this kind 
used in domestic and other architecture, and also in furni- 
ture, is usually finished with some varnish or polish which 
stains and deepens the tone. The effect of the varnish, 
too, is to bring out the red undertone, which is not ob- 
servable in the new, unpolished, or unvarnished surface. 

The oil graining-color, thinned to proper consistency 



150 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

for application to the distemper or water-color, may be 
rubbed into each panel or other piece successively, and fin- 
ished before rubbing in any more ; or, if the color be slow, 
the whole door-side may be rubbed in before putting in the 
veins. The panels and pieces composing the door must be 
treated, in one sense, individually, and in another collec- 
tively — that is, each must have its individual character, 
but not without reference to the work as a whole. AVith 
Avhatever of variety, there must be a certain uniformity. 

That portion of the surface of the work which has been 
rubbed in with the graining-color is ready for what we are 
23leased to call the hand of the artist. The oil graining- 
color may be left to set a little before proceeding with the 
work of putting in the veins and figures. There are two 
modes of doing this : one is to wipe out the lights, as in 
oak graining ; the other, to put in the darker veins with a 
sable or camel's-hair pencil. The former mode is not rec- 
ommended, for the reason that the darker veins cover so 
small a proportion of the surface, that wiping out the lights 
is to wipe off nearly all the color which has been applied. 
As the veins are put in, they should be softened with the 
badger-blender, the proper manipulation of which comes 
easy after a little practice. This portion of the work re- 
quires not only more time but more skill than any other, 
and with the glazing and shading is really that part of 
the operation which demands a cunning hand and a prac- 
ticed eye. 

After applying the coat of oil graining-color, it is com- 
mon to wipe with a rag some of the color from the work from 



BLACK-WALNUT GRAINING. 151 

toj) to bottom of rail or panel, as the case may be, to give 
variety and a more woody appearance to the job in hand. 
If it were possible to tell just when and where this should 
be done, the writer's task would be comparatively easy ; but 
this knowledge will come only through close observation 
of the natural wood, or the work of some accomplished 
grainer. Much of the graining, even in the best jobs, will 
of course be done plainly and .quickly. A painter's duster, 
or other brush, drawn lengthwise of the rail or stile, or 
diagonally across the same, and softened with the blender, 
will be all-sufficient to make a good enough imitation for a 
considerable portion of the work. Care must be taken not 
to elaborate the job too much, or it will look finical, petty, 
and inartistic. Too much plainness, on the other hand, will 
give the work a careless, slovenly, unworkmanlike charac- 
ter. It is important that proper care be taken as to the 
joints ; each separate piece of wood must be shown by and 
for itself. The graining on the stiles of a door must not 
lap over the rails, but go cleanly and sharply along the 
joint-lines. Th6 oil-coat will be left to dry overnight, or 
a day or two, as may be convenient, before the glazing-coat, 
which will be water-color, composed of Vandyke-brown and 
drop-black. The mode of procedure in the finishing oper- 
ation will be the same as described under the caption of 
light-oak graining. 

The water-color will be rubbed in one panel or piece at 
a time, and stippled with a dry brush, and blended with 
the badger-hair softener, more or less color being aj^plied 
as the nature of the work may require. It will be observed 



152 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

that there is a mucli greater uniformity of tone in black- 
walnut than in either light or dark oak, this wood being 
singularly free from knots and gnarled places or spots. 
The use of the comb may be entirely dispensed with in 
black-walnut graining. Moldings and carved work must 
always be glazed, so as to show darker than the surround- 
ing surface. The top- or over-grainer may be used for 
putting in the veins on straight work, as rails and stiles 
of doors and wainscoting, Avith a view to economy of 
time ; but to make good work with it requires a practiced 
hand. 

A bit of sponge is a useful article in all kinds of water- 
color graining and glazing. 

A summary of the foregoing directions for graining 
black-walnut shows as follows : 

A ground-color, made of pure white-lead, orange chrome- 
yellow, or golden ochre and royal red and black. 

A stippled coat of water-color, composed of Vandyke- 
brown and drop-black. 

Oil graining-color, composed of Vandyke-brown, burnt 
sienna, burnt umber, and drop-black. Keady-made grain- 
ing-colors are recommended as best and cheapest. 

The oil-color may be applied as soon as the stippled coat 
of water-color is dry. The veins are put in with a pencil on 
the fresh oil-coat, and blended to soften and give them in- 
distinctness. 

When the oil-coat is dry, it should be lightly rubbed 
with worn fine sand-paper, and a glazing-coat of water- 
color, mixed the same as for the first stippled coat, should 



BLACK-WALNUT GRAINING. 153 

be applied. This must also be stippled, and softened with 
a blender. 

Let the ground-color be light enough to show the light- 
est specimens of wood, trusting to a greater depth of color 
to represent the darker pieces. 

When a large surface is to be grained cheaply, employ a 
large paint-brush for rubbing in, and an eight-inch kalso- 
mine-brush for stippling, using the flat side of the bristles, 
and not the ends thereof. 

For glazing, water is always better than beer as a thin- 
ner, whenever it will hold the color, as beer has a bad effect 
on the first coat of varnish. 

A job of black-walnut graining may be finished in one 
day by the free use of japan or gold-size in the oil-coat. 

If the work is to be finished without varnish, the glazing- 
coat must be of oil graining-color. 



CHAPTER XIX. 



ASH GRAIKIKG. 



Until within a few years there has been no demand for 
painted imitations of this very useful and, in some of its 
presentations, beautiful wood. 

It has of late more and more come into use in the inte- 
rior finish of railroad-cars and carriages, and of houses and 
domiciles. The latter-named fact has consequently created 
a demand for the painted imitation of this wood in cases 
where the use of the natural wood, from whatever cause, 
was not deemed expedient. 

The question as to the economy of natural wood, against 
painted imitations of the same, will probably remain for a 
long time unanswered. First cost, with the great majority 
of house-owners, who have the bills to pay, is of prime im- 
portance. A domicile constructed of soft-pine wood may 
be left for a time unpainted without any great detriment to 
comfort or to the health of the occupants, and painting will 
be in order at any time subsequent to occupation, whenever 
the wishes and disposition of the occupants may be in ac- 
cord with the saved-up money wherewith to pay the paint- 
er's bill. 



ASH GRAINING. I55 

Graining or grained work is, of all the various styles of 
painting, the most economical, because such work, properly 
performed, will last an indefinite period, and stand the 
washings, and wipings, and house-cleanings to which inte- 
rior painting must necessarily be exposed, without becom- 
ing spoiled or damaged. Plain colors could be as surely 
and well protected as grained work by coats of yarnish ; 
but the varnish would discolor the tints unless they should 
be quite dark, and plain colors, such as would be suitable 
for finishing the interior wood-work of a dwelling-house, 
would not look well, nor be in accordance with good taste, 
if finished with a varnished surface. 

Ash-wood, being cheaper and more easily worked than 
oak, is frequently used as a substitute for the latter, which, 
more than any other woody growth, it closely resembles. 
Indeed, there are many not unaccustomed to familiarity 
with furniture and other joined work, who can not always 
distinguish between these two woods. 

Ash may be imitated on the same ground-color as that 
used for light oak, and all the instructions given for light- 
oak graining may be followed, the same as if they were 
written especially for this, excepting that the dapples 
which give such an agreeable diversity to oak-wood are 
entirely wanting in ash. 

The work for ash graining has the same colored 
ground, undergoes the same preparation, and the same 
process of wiping out and combing to show the veins and 
grain. 

It would seem that no further directions or instructions 



156 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

can be given as to the best method of proceeding to obtain 
a good imitation of this wood. 

. The painter is advised not to attempt to make his own 
ash graining-color, if it be possible for him to obtain a can 
of ready-made color, for the reason that he will experience 
great difficulty and spend a good deal of labor in making 
that which he may obtain ready-made to his hand. 

The use of this wood is so common, and the American 
ash varies so little in its grain and tone of color, that the 
workman is advised to procure a piece of ash with a planed 
surface, to fill up and varnish the same, and to use it as an 
example for imitation. 

The occurrence of knots in ash is not infrequent, and 
the knots themselves are commonly very dark in contrast 
with the surrounding parts. These knots, with their ac- 
companying tints and complication and bright flash-lights, 
give to the wood all those beautiful diversities which ren- 
der this common material worthy of imitation. 

There is a sj^ecies of this wood called Hungarian ash, 
now in common use in the interior finish for passenger- 
cars. This is applied wholly in the shape of veneers, and 
exhibits a wonderfully diversified grain, tlie same being 
beautifully and intricately curled and tinted. In tone of 
color, both in groundwork and grain, it does not differ 
from the common American growth. 



CHAPTER XX. 

CHESTi^UT GRAIKIKG. 

This chapter will finish our direct instruction for oil- 
graining, and will necessarily be brief, from the fact that 
there is little to be said on this that has not been already 
repeated under light and dark oak, excepting the direction 
for making the ground and preparing the graining-color. 
The writer confesses himself at a loss to understand why 
any person should desire or require the imitation of this 
coarse and sickly-yellow-looking wood ; but "every one to 
his taste " is perhaps a good motto, and we will not quarrel 
with the man who would even imitate spruce or hemlock 
with grained work. 

The ground for chestnut is decidedly more yellow than 
any which has been shown or described, and it would seem 
to require a glazing of yellow to make a really close imita- 
tion of the natural wood. White-lead with yellow ochre 
and a little orange-chrome will give the best tint for 
groundwork, and burnt umber with a very little Van- 
dyke-brown and burnt sienna makes the best graining- 
color. Ready-made chestnut graining-color can be pro- 



158 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

cured at the shops, and its use is advised in preference to 
the making up of the color by the painter. 

This wood is generally of very coarse grain, being of 
more rapid growth than any of the other so-called hard 
woods, while it presents a greater degree of sameness and 
want of variety. It should be imitated by wiping out, after 
the manner of oak-graining, and the use of coarse combs. 
The best study is a piece of chestnut board, planed and 
filled up and polished. We have never seen a grainer who 
took any particular pride in his ability to make a good imi- 
tation of this wood, and we can not therefore recommend, 
as copy for the beginner, specimens executed by any first- 
class workman. 

In view of the fact that the cost of imitating this cheap 
and common wood is as great as is the cost of painting in 
imitation of oak, black-walnut, or other woods which are 
worth imitating, the query still remains unanswered. Why 
do people require painted imitations of this very ordinary 
and plain-looking wood ? 



CHAPTER XXI. 

KEW SYSTEM OF GRAIN"IKG ON" U:N'PAINTED PINE-WOOD 
SURFACES. 

The first work of this kind which ever came under the 
writer's notice was performed under his own supervision 
and direction, and he therefore reasonably concUides that 
the same will be a novelty to the trade. The peculiarity 
of this new manner of graining is the application of the 
graining-colors directly to the unpainted pine-wood sur- 
face. The tint of new white pine gives ^s good a ground- 
color for light-oak graining as can be desired, at the same 
time not being objectionable, under the proposed mode of 
treatment, for dark oak and black-walnut. 

The operation consists simply in giving to the work one 
coat of glue-size, and applying the graining-color in the 
same manner as heretofore described under the title of 
"Light-Oak Graining." 

In this method (referring to black-walnut) the stippled 
coat of distemper-color must be dispensed with, and the oil- 
color applied directly to the ground. 

To prepare the glue-size, take a handful, more or less, 
as may be required, of wliite glue, and throw the same into 



IGO HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

a clean pail or other vessel ; cover with cold water, and let 
stand overnight. Next morning pour on boiling water, 
apply a moderate heat for a few minutes, and the whole 
will become thoroughly dissolved and homogeneous. Let 
this be of strength sufficient to bear out the graining-color 
long enough to permit the combing and taking out of the 
lights, and also strong enough to cover the knots and res- 
inous places, so that the varnish-coat will not remove the 
graining-color therefrom. A little practice will make per- 
fect in this respect. 

The graining-color may have a greater proportion of oil 
than is recommended for graining on joainted surfaces, as 
the wood will be, notwithstanding the coating of glue, 
more or less absorbent. It is advised to rub in and grain 
one panel or other piece at a time ; at least,* until the 
operator shall have learned by experience how long the 
color will *^bear out" without setting to that degree that 
it will not comb and wipe. As much graining-color, 
thinned with boiled oil and turpentine, should be used as 
possible, consistent with the proper tone of color for the 
light-oak parts, for the reason that the heavier the grain- 
ing-coat, the better body will there be for receiving the 
varnish-coat. 

For black-walnut the first application of graining-color 
should be stippled, as is directed for the distemper-color in 
ordinary black-walnut graining ; and the veins put on the 
stippled coat when fresh, the blender being used to soften, 
as before described. 

The beginner will find it not difficult to trace the veins, 



GRAINING ON UNPAINTED PINE-WOOD SURFACES. 161 

which will show plainly through the color, and the practice 
will be good, for the reason that tracing the natural veins 
will familiarize him with the shapes and directions which 
the grain takes on in the growth of the timber. This ap- 
plies not to black-walnut, the grain of which is not unlike 
that of white pine. 

The first coat being well dried, should be rubbed lightly 
with fine, worn sand-paper, and the glazing or shading coat 
may be either oil-color, as was the first coat, or distemper, 
as in the ordinary way. Oil is advised, for the reason before 
given — to make a better body for the varnish-coat. It will 
be well to leave the work for a day or two before applying 
the varnish, which should be carriage, and not quick, hard- 
drying, furniture-varnish. Two coats of varnish are ad- 
vised, as the extra wearing quality of the job will more 
than repay the cost of thq second coat. 

It must not be supposed that work done in this way 
will present the finished appearance of grained work done 
on three or four coats of paint ; but it enables the un- 
skilled grainer to make a clean job at the least expenditure 
of time and money, and one which will prove vastly more 
durable than the best job done in the ordinary way, be- 
cause the color, being ingrained on the wood, will not 
chip off and show the lighter groundwork underneath the 
darker graining-color. The system is not offered as the 
equivalent of, or as a substitute for, the best grained work 
as ordinarily performed ; but as a cheap and ready mode 
of producing a smooth and durable surface in houses where 
white and light tints are not specially required. The 



1G2 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

writer exhibits specimens of this style which pass among 
experts as good jobs of grained work, and many are slow to 
believe that it is done on an unpainted surface of common 
white pine. In any event, a trial will cost nothing, as, in 
case the result shall not prove satisfactory, the color and 
varnish already applied will make a good foundation to 
paint upon. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

DISTEMPER-GRAIKING. 

The term '* distemper-graining" is imperfectly under- 
stood by most people who use it, and there seems to be a 
general disposition to look upon it as largely, if not wholly, 
insignificant. , Its proper definition is, a method of paint- 
ing wherein some vehicle other than water or oil is used 
for thinning the pigments. Its application, however, is to 
all kinds of graining — and to that work only — where non- 
water-proof thinning, such as beer, alcohol, glue-size, etc., 
is employed in place of oil, varnish, or substances of like 
nature. 

Formerly, all imitations of wood and marble were done 
in distemper, oil-graining being of comparatively recent 
date. The advantage of distemper-graining is, that no 
time (so to speak) need necessarily elapse between the put- 
ting in of the work and the varnish-coat. 

For certain kinds of the hard, close-grained woods, such 
as maple, mahogany, satinwood, and rosewood, the best 
effects are produced by the use of water-colors, rather 
than oil graining-colors ; while for the open, coarse-grained 



104 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

woods, as oak, ash, and chestnut, the oil-colors are de- 
cidedly preferable. There are soveral modes of procedure 
in distemper-graining, all of which will be treated more 
or less fully in succeeding chapters. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 



The wood of this yery respectable native tree is, with 
its close, fine texture, its delicate, soft-toned ground and 
shadings, and penciled, sinuous grain, altogether the most 
beautiful' of what are called the light-colored woods. 
Painted imitations of it should always be executed in dis- 
temper or water-colors on a very smooth ground of almost 
white, but just turned toward a buff with the addition of 
the slightest quantity of Italian raw sienna. Some grainers 
use a white ground, but it is not recommended, because it 
gives a sharp, harsh character, which does not belong to the 
natural wood when finished and polished. 

Raw Italian sienna, with the addition of burnt sienna 
and Vandyke-brown, gives the proper graining-color for 
maple. The raw sienna, of course, forms the bulk of the 
material. The ground should be rubbed very smooth with 
fine sand-paper. The amount of graining-color required is 
very small, and the work must be rubbed in one panel or 
piece at a time. There are several modes of taking out the 
lights. The one recommended is by means of the tool made 



166 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

expressly for this work, called a cutter, and shown on page 
128. The tool is drawn over the work longitudinally of the 
panel or rail or stile, as the case may be, and the sides of the 
cutter are alternately raised and lowered in its passage, in 
order to wipe out the color as shown in the natural wood. 
The work is then blended with the badger crosswise, from 
left to right, but not in the direction of the tool — that is, 
the blending or softening must be done transversely to the 
direction or path of the cutter. This brings the work to 
that point where the use of the " piped maple over- (or top-) 
grainer," as shown on page 126, comes into use. The pipes, 
it will be seen, keep the pencil-points apart or separate, and 
there is nothing to be done but to make the proper color for 
the over-grain, and to draw the over-grainer with an un- 
dulating, sinuous motion from top to bottom of the panel. 
When the writer was a boy, the custom was, in maple grain- 
ing, to take out the lights by rolling a wet sponge from top 
to bottom, and to put in the bird's-eyes by dabbing the wet 
surface of the work with the four fingers held more or less 
loosely or in contact. This, to say the least of it, was an 
expeditious mode of procedure, but we are inclined to the 
opinion that, like almost everything else obtained at little 
cost, it was little T^orth. The putting in of the bird's-eyes 
to an imitation of maple is a somewhat delicate operation, 
and to produce good results requires a cunning hand. The 
best tool for this purpose that has ever come under the ob- 
servation of the writer is a piece of woolen cloth, say broad- 
cloth, so folded as to present, on the end of a somewhat 
sharp angle, a form similar to the eyes seen in the wood. 



BIRD'S-EYE MAPLE. 167 

The operation of folding the cloth is extremely simple 
to the sight, but not so easily made intelligible by a yerbal 
description. With not a few misgivings as to the success 
of the experiment, the writer will attempt to describe the 
operation. 

Take a piece of woolen cloth, about as large as the hand ; 
lay on the table and fold in the middle lengthwise ; bring 
the two edges together toward the body, leaving the fold 
away from the body ; then, at a distance of about two 
inches from the right-hand end, fold the cloth over upon 
itself so as to bring that portion of the folded edge which is 
held in the fingers at right angles to the part held under 
the left hand, forming at the right hand an imperfect tri- 
angle ; this will be continued until the cloth shall take 
on the shape of a flattened horn, so called, such as fancy 
candies are wrapped in sometimes. The sharp end, when 
applied to a small quantity of color spread upon a board or 
other flat surface, will retain enough to form a minute, in- 
complete circle or eye, which, as well as or better than any 
other readily available means, will imitate the eyes or dots 
in the natural wood. These eyes are not put in without 
regard to arrangement. Each eye has its proper place, 
which place will be readily found by consulting a piece of 
the natural wood. Remember, the blender is not used after 
the eyes are put in. What seems to be the shadow of the 
dark spot is the color which the cutter did not remove, 
and which was softened crosswise, from left to right* 

Bird's-eye maple is exhibited mostly in shops and ofiices 
where showiness is required, and in panels only, the rails 



1G8 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

and stiles being either warm-toned black- walnut, or, better, 
rosewood. The moldings may be cut in with scarlet ver- 
milion (true) before the finishing coat of varnish. 

The tree which affords this wood is the well-known 
sugar-maj)le {Acer saccJiarinum), so common in the more 
Korthern States. 

The time will probably come when this tree will possess 
a greater value for cabinet and joiner work than for the 
crop of sugar which it yields. Its use at present is con- 
fined mostly to panels for cabinet furniture and linings for 
drawers in the shape of veneers. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

MAHOGAKY GRAINII^G.* 

The almost total disuse of this beautiful and servicea- 
ble wood for cabinet-work and internal domestic architect- 
ure generally, and its substitution by black- walnut, is and 
must remain one of those freaks or caprices of fashion which 
no man can account for. 

Painted imitations also have gone out with the original, 
and a professional grainer might not in the course of years 
be called on to do a piece of grained work in imitation of ma- 
hogany ; whereas, a few years ago, to imitate mahogany suc- 
cessfully was considered the highest reach of the grainer's art. 

For painted imitations of this wood a bright ground 
is required, which may be best produced with extra-deep 
orange chrome-yellow and royal red. The graining-color 
is made with burnt Italian sienna and a little Vandyke- 
brown. The grain is put in with various means and tools, 

* This chapter was written some years ago, when this beautiful wood 
was almost forgotten as a material out of which to construct household 
furniture. The mutations of fashion have again brought it to the front, 
and from this time forth mahogany will be " the mode," and black-walnut 
must take a back seat. Consequently, what we have said about mahogany 
graining has a double valufe, for the reason that imitations of the favorite 
wood will again be in demand. 



I 



170 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

according to tlie kind or variety of the wood to be imitated. 
In doors and other paneled work what is known as crotch- 
work is generally displayed. In this the lights are taken out 
with the cutter, as shown on page 128, and for this purpose 
the use of this tool is advised as the best of all the vari- 
ous methods which ingenious workmen have devised for this 
purpose. We could tell of a dozen others, but, as the result 
would be to mislead rather than to elucidate, we refrain. 
The top- or over-grainer, such as used in oak graining, is a 
most important tool in mahogany graining, and the proper 
use of it readily comes with practice. It must not, how- 
ever, as in its application to oak, be broken or separated in 
distinct, comb-like teeth, but must be kept as much as pos- 
sible in its natural or dry state. The fine lines which are 
put in with the top-grainer do not, as in oak panels, pro- 
ceed in straight or nearly straight lines from top to bottom, 
but commence at the bottom on the left-hand side of the 
crotch, and are carried, with a slightly waving motion, at a 
pretty sharp angle, to the center of the crotch, and brought 
down on the right-hand side and terminated at the bottom 
or sides of the panel. The first lines will commence, of 
course, at the bottom and terminate there ; but as the 
graining is continued up the panel, the grain will neces- 
sarily commence at the side and terminate on the opposite 
side at the same height or level. 

Some grainers use vermilion or orange mineral for 
making ground for mahogany ; but our opinion is, that the 
colors recommended are sufficiently bright, and that the 
brighter-colored pigments are not necessary or advisable. 



MAHOGANY GRAINIXG. 171 

The rails and stiles in doors and paneled work may be 
grained with the blender by drawing it over the fresh grain- 
ing-color, either continuously or by arresting its progress 
every three or four inches, bringing it to a full stop, and 
then proceeding again. In this, as in all kinds of painted 
imitations of natural woods, the badger-blender plays a 
most importantipart. Graining can not be done without it, 
any more than it can be done wii^put a paint-brush or col- 
ors. It is the principal and mosf^luable means to produce 
effects which are almost or quite unattainable without it. 

Supposing the graining — that is, the first application of 
distemper-color — to be finished and dry, the varnish-coat is 
next in order. This may be a very thin coat, just enough 
to hold the distemper, and the varnish should be what 
coach-painters call quick ruhhlng. When this varnish-coat 
is sufficiently dry—which should be in one day — the work 
is ready for glazing, which will be done with the same color 
as was used for putting in the grain in the first coat. Rub 
in the work, panel by panel, with thin glazing-color and 
stipple with the blender, softening the grain, as may seem 
necessary. 

The glazing-coat in mahogany graining seems more in- 
dispensable than in imitating the other woods, for the rea- 
son that mahogany has more depth and transparency. 

The finishing varnish-coat should be what the trade 
denominates as "hard-drying coach-body," and should be 
flowed on with a thick badger-hair varnish-brush, leaving 
as much varnish on the surface as will remain there without 
running. ^ _ 



CHAPTER XXV. 

EOSEWOOD GRAINING. 

This costly and beautiful wood yet holds its place in the 
fashionable world, and the arbitrary dictates of that capri- 
cious yet almost unquestioned power command that cer- 
tain articles of furniture, for certain times and places, shall 
be shaped in rosewood. 

Painted imitations of rosewood are not, as a rule, satis- 
factory or desirable, mainly from the fact that such articles 
as would be painted in imitation of it are generally not 
fabricated out of the natural wood. Rosewood doors are 
not uncommon, it is true; but their surroundings are 
usually such as to put grained work entirely out of the 
question. 

The proper ground for rosewood is crimson vermilion ; 
not the so-called American yermilion, but the true quick- 
silver product. The surface should be very smooth, and 
previous to putting in the grain there should be a glazing 
of English crimson-lake applied to the ground. This brings 
the surface to a proper condition for receiving the grain. 
This will be done with black, but not lampblack. The 



ROSEWOOD GRAINING. 173 

gray tone of tlie common carbon, which comes from the 
destructive distillation of fatty substances, will not give 
what is required for the work in question. 

The black required for this work is to common lamp- 
black what the latter-named article is to lead-color. 

There is a black used by coach-makers which comes from 
the carbonizing of pure ivory. This is the only black 
which has no rival but that darkness which has never known 
a ray of light. It may be obtained by the grainer, not at 
the ordinary places where ground paints are sold, but at 
some dealer's who trades in coach-makers' goods. It will be 
found ground in quick-drying vehicles, and for the require- 
ments of the grainer must be reduced with raw linseed-oil. 
This black is the proper material for putting in the grain 
of an imitation of rosewood. This penciling-coat will be 
blended as fast as put in with the badger, and, when thor- 
oughly dry, the whole surface will be glazed with a very 
thin coat of the same black as was used for the veined work. 
The glazing-coat of black — the black being a body-color — 
will, of course, be very thin, and the glazing process will 
be precisely the same as recommended for black-walnut 
and oak. 

Rose-pink is sometimes used in place of lake far the 
first glazing-coat, but, as this is one of the most fugitive of 
all colors, its use is not advised, especially for out-door 
work. 

Eosewood imitations are not common, the wood itself 
being now mostly used for such articles of furniture as are 
not suitable for imitating with painted work. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

SATINWOOD. 

This is an East-Indian wood of fine grain, and takes 
on a high polish. 

It is displayed mostly in panel-work, and is imitated on 
a ground of the same tint as that used for bird's-eye maple. 
The graining-color is the same also as that used in grain- 
ing the last-named wood, viz., raw Italian sienna with a 
very small quantity of burnt sienna and Vandyke-brown. 
The difference in the painted imitations of these woods is 
simply in the manner of putting in the grain. 

The graining is done wholly in distemper, and the Kghts 
are taken out with the cutter, as shown on page 128, and 
the directions as to putting in the top grain, given in the 
chapter on " Mahogany Graining," are entirely applicable 
to the work in question. 

There is very little demand for satinwood in this coun- 
try, either in the natural wood or in the painted imitations 
of the same. 

While it is important to cultivate a bold, free hand 
in graining, it must, not be forgotten that a close imita- 



SATIN wo 01). 175 

tion of natural wood is the result of careful manipulation, 
a practiced, eye, and good taste. No man can perform a 
good job, in imitating colored and fancy woods, with a 
whitewash-brush dipped in color, and get over a half-acre 
of surface in eight hours. A grained door may be a 
"thing of bemity,'^ as certainly as is the finest work of art 
which adorns the walls of a picture-gallery. The itinerant 
picture-vender gladly accepts a few dollars for his pair of 
thirty-by-forty-inch elegant landscapes, in broad Dutch 
gilt frames. This sum, multiplied by hundreds, is freely 
paid for the work of some famous artist, the whole surface 
of which might almost be covered with a man's two hands. 
A door-side may be grained for a quarter of a dollar, or 
twenty-five dollars may be expended, in labor alone, on the 
same surface. In either case the purchaser is supposed to 
receive no more than an equivalent for his money. In 
graining, the most skillful workman can perform, easily and 
rapidly, the cheapest and plainest kind of work required, 
and it is a matter of necessity that the professional grainer 
shall be able to adapt his hand to any style of work which 
may be required. 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

BLACK-WALNUT IN DISTEMPER. 

This mode of graining black-walnut is recommended 
when a large surface is to be painted quickly and cheaply, 
and with little regard to the closeness of imitation. It is 
accomplished in various ways and by various means, some 
of which — those deemed most useful — will be hereafter de- 
scribed. 

First, the ground, similar in tone and character to that 
used in oil-graining, Chapter XVIII, will be stippled on a 
coat of water-color, made of burnt sienna and Vandyke- 
brown ; but the coat and color both must be lighter than 
that recommended in oil-graining. Upon this stippled coat, 
when dry, may be put in the veins and lines with a sable 
pencil or with the top-grainer, as described in oil black- 
walnut graining. This, of course, requires no time before 
the varnish-coat, which must be, supposing the intention be 
to glaze over the varnish, quite thin. When dry, the glaz- 
ing coat of water-color must be applied in precisely the same 
manner as shown on page 152, under the head of '' Black- 
Walnut Graining in Oil." 



BLACK-WALNUT IX DISTEMPER. I77 

It is common, in work which does not present any ex- 
tended surfaces, such as panels — or rail-work, which con- 
sists in moldings and narrow flat pieces, as door and window 
frames, and cornices — to give first a stippled coat of oil-color, 
and when dry to put on oyer this a coat of distemper-color 
and grain with the blender, drawing the same more or less 
in right lines lengthwise of the work, and softening, as may 
suit the taste or fancy. This mode is recommended when 
the surfaces do not afford any chance for a display of artis- 
tic labor or skill. 

When a large, extended surface of neiu wood is to be 
pointed in imitation of black- walnut, and the result is to 
be accomplished with the least expenditure of time and 
material, we recommend the following course of jDrocedure : 
First give the work a coat of glue-size, having a small quan- 
tity of whiting mixed with it ; on this, when dry, a coat of 
ground-color made with pure white-lead, colored with gold- 
en ochre and a little ivory-black, to produce a warm drab ; 
thin almost entirely with boiled oil, and, when thoroughly 
dry, apply with a largest-size paint-brush, or an eight-inch 
kalsomine-brush, a coat of distemper graining-color, mixed 
as follows : Vandyke-brown and burnt umber ground in 
water, added to an equal quantity of smooth flour-paste. 
Thin this with water to a proper consistency, and apply as 
before said. For the graining, use a handled duster, such 
as is common for removing the dust from a painted floor 
by means of a dust-pan. Put the color on a large surface 
at a time, as it will not dry rapidly, and go over it straight 
or diagonally with the bristles composing the duster, ai 



178 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

stipple with the same. The varnish-coat over this needs be 
heavy, and of elastic material, to insure durability. This 
style of painting results in a clean, respectable-looking job, 
durable if properly done, and quite as cheap as ordinary 
two-coat work of plain painting. 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

LIGHT-OAK GKAINING IN" DISTEMPER. 

Ordin'ARILY there are no conditions or requirements 
where the painter or grainer is called upon to depart from 
the now almost universally adopted custom of graining oak 
in oil-colors ; but there may be occasions where a job of oak 
graining must be done in distemper; consequently, every 
grainer should acquire a knowledge of the process. It is 
recommended only on the score of economy and saving of 
time in the operation. 

A description of the process, as now in actual operation 
in one of the large buildings used by the writer as a man- 
ufactory, will, perhaps, best elucidate to the average com- 
prehension the mode of proceeding to accomplish the best 
results with the least expenditure of means. 

First in order, the new wood receives a coat of glue- 
size mixed with common whiting. This is followed by the 
coat of ground-color — a light buff made of pure lead and 
golden ochre, thinned with clear, boiled oil. This oil- 
coat, which bears out about as much as an ordinary second 
coat, is allowed to stand two davs, when a rubbing of sand- 



180 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

paper brings it into condition for tlie distemper graining- 
color. For this, take of raw sienna, burnt sienna, and 
Vandyke-brown ground in water, whatever may be re- 
quired to do the work ; mix to suit the taste, as to tone of 
color, and add to the mixture an equal quantity of smooth 
flour-paste; thin with water to a proper consistency for' 
application, apply with a largest-size paint-brush, and comb 
as in oil-graining. To give variety, some of the work will 
be combed, and some portion will be left as stippled by 
the whitewash-brush. In case it may be deemed desirable 
to give a still greater variety to the work, a glazing-coat of 
oil graining-color may be given to every other board form- 
ing a wall, or bulkhead, or ceiling, and to a rail or stile of 
a door. When dry, this work should receive a heavy flow- 
ing coat of elastic varnish. This style of painting costs 
but little, if any, more than ordinary plain painting, while 
it is much more desirable and pleasing to the eye — that 
is, the general appearance is altogether preferable to plain 
colors. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

YARK^ISHIKG. 

The shabbiest economy ever practiced in painting is 
the use of cheap varnish in finishing any job where a coat 
of varnish is required. 

Closing the seams of a costly garment with unsound 
thread, or covering an expensive house with a paper roof, 
would hardly evince less discretion in the way of true 
economy. 

Work that is worth varnishing at all, is worth a good 
coat of that article. It will look better, wash better, and 
last longer, whether it be inside or outside work. A coat 
of cheap varnish — or a dear varnish, if it be not suited to 
this particular work — may, in a short time, spoil the best 
possible job of graining, and leave the surface in such a 
condition that all the labor expended will be worse than 
thrown away. Quich-drying, hard varnish, such as is 
used on furniture^ is not suited to varnishing painted sur- 
faces, especially if the work he exposed to the toeather. 

It seems almost beyond belief that a householder 
should secure, at whatever cost of trouble and money, the 



182 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

services of a first-rate artist to do a particular job of grain- 
ing, and evince no anxiety as to the character of the var- 
nish which is put upon the painted surface to protect and 
preserve it. The difference in cost between the best varnish 
and the worst, for a job of grained work, is but a trifle. 
The owner would pay not less than three dollars a gallon 
for the poorest varnish — that most unfit for the purpose — 
while the best ought not to cost over six dollars a gallon. 
The difference in first cost between the best and the worst 
varnish for coating both sides of a large door, would not be 
more than thirty or forty cents, while the one will wear 
ten times as long as the other, and give a much better 
finish. Many house-painters are at fault in this matter, 
and practice a left-handed economy in the purchase of 
varnish. 

What would be thought of a carriage-painter who 
would expend fifty days' labor, and the requisite material, 
in painting a coach, and finish the same with a coat of 
doubtful varnish, on the pretense of economy ? 

It must be remembered that the durability of a job of 
grained work depends wholly on the varnishing. There is 
no good reason why grained doors should not last without 
repainting as long as an oil-painting or other work of art, 
and they may be made as beautiful and attractive as the 
pictures which adorn the walls. It is quite within the 
power of a good workman to so finish a grained door that 
it shall remain in perfect preservation for twenty years or 
more. To effect this, requires, of course, the best talent, 
knowledge, skill, and a practiced hand ; but it is within 



VARNISHING. Ig3 

reach of every good workman. No good job of grained 
work, or any other work, in fact, should be looked upon as 
finished after one coat of varnish. Two coats, at least, 
should be put on, the first being what is known m coach- 
painting as ''quick leveling or rubbing varnish," and the 
last, or finishing coat, should be hard-drying, coach-body 
varnish. The first coat should, after standing long enough 
to become sufficiently hard, be rubbed with powdered 
pumice-stone, and the finishing coat should be flowed on 
with a flat, thick, badger or fitch flowing-brush. As much 
varnish should be applied as will remain on the work with- 
out running. This operation requires skill and practice, 
with an excellent judgment. No novice should attempt it. 

It will be remembered that we are not now treating the 
question of common grained work, done under the whip 
and spur of insufficient compensation, but of the best re- 
sults that are possible with imitations of colored or fancy 
woods. 

Nothing is spared in coach-painting which can or may 
in any degree conduce to the durability of the work, not 
incompatible with beauty of finish ; and the coach-painter 
is supposed to have reached the maximum of these two 
most desirable qualities in combination. So, his example 
and processes are worthy of imitation, so far as they may 
be applicable to the work of house-painting. Through a 
partial adoption of the modes and processes common in 
coach-painting, the painted surfaces inside our domiciles 
may be rendered as much more durable than they now are, 
as coach-work is more beautiful than house-painting. The 



184 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTma, AND GRAINING. 

assertion may seem startling to the average honse-painter's 
intelligence, but it is a fact, nevertheless, that not one 
house-painter in a hundred has any knowledge of the 
proper use and application of varnish. 

Varnish should not and must not be rubbed out under 
the brush, as paint is rubbed out. The two processes are 
entirely different. In varnishing, the object is to put as 
much on the work as will stay there. The more varnish 
there is on the" surface, supposing it to be smooth and free 
from runs, the better. The object should be, not how 
little can the surface be coated with ; but, how much can 
be put upon it and made to stay there. 

House-painters should learn the art of varnishing from 
coach-painters. 

In concluding this chapter, the writer would say, use 
for good work the best varnish you can get, and as mucli 
of it as will remain on the work without running. 



CHAPTER XXX. 

GENERAL REMARKS. 

There is much that might be said in a general way on 
the subject of graining which can not find room in a work 
of this scope and extent. The aim has been to describe 
the processes with as much detail and particularity as, in 
the opinion of the writer, would serve to elucidate the sub- 
ject, and not befog the learner with a confusing multiplicity 
of directions. The difficulty of teaching any art or sci- 
ence, however simple, without the use of the technical vo- 
cabulary belonging thereto, can not be appreciated by one 
who has not made the attempt. To teach, by means of 
written words, a process where both teacher and learner are 
familiar with* the technical terms naturally and properly 
belonging to such process, is comparatively easy ; but to 
make clear to the comprehension of the novice, simply 
through such medium, a process which depends for its 
successful execution almost entirely upon the eye, and at 
the same time so to phrase it as not to make it seem child- 
ish to the initiated, is a task which one comprehending 
these difficulties would be slow to undertake. 



186 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

Witli an apology for the repetition, we would again call 
attention to the fact that the object has been so to present 
this matter that one, unacquainted even Avith the simi^le 
names of the tools and materials usually employed, would 
be enabled to start from the right point and proceed in the 
proper direction. The measure of success which will wait 
upon the effort can be known only to those who seek in- 
struction in these pages. 

The reader will hardly come to the conclusion that all 
grained work, or even a majority of it, is wrought out 
through all the various processes heretofore described. 

A very large proportion of what is called graining is 
finished with one coat of color to the groundwork and one 
coat of varnish. Indeed, two varnish-coats are the excep- 
tion rather than the rule. Much of the black- walnut oil- 
graining is done without the stippled coat of distemper- 
color and varnished without glazing ; but one must not 
expect to obtain the best results through so simple a pro- 
cess. What is worth having is worth working for ; and 
this will be found true in graining, as in any of the higher 
branches of the art of painting. 

The interior wood-work in mills, factories, and places 
of like nature, is commonly painted in imitation of some 
of ^ the lighter hard woods, not so much on the score of ap- 
pearance as for cleanliness and economy. A varnished sur- 
face is much more easily kept clean than a surface of ordi- 
nary paint ; but varnished plain colors do not look well. 
Under such circumstances, no attempt is made at putting 
in fine work, the object being to turn off the job as quick- 



GENERAL REMARKS. 187 

ly as possible, with a view to neatness and general uni- 
formity. 

City grainers — those who call themselves "grainers to 
the trade" — do not usually, in large jobs, **rub in" the 
work themselves, but employ one or more boys, who soon 
become expert in the preliminary process of rubbing in, 
combing, etc., and who are, from the nature of their occu- 
pation, in the very best possible school for acquiring a thor- 
ough knowledge of the art. 

The importance of a smooth, hard surface to grain 
upon can not be over-estimated. The best workman in 
the world can not do good work on a rough, uneven sur- 
face, for the reason that the rough places will retain an 
undue proportion of color, and will not part with it when 
the attempt is made to wipe out the lights. A well sand- 
papered surface and finely ground colors are indispensable 
to good, clean work. 

There are some otherwise very good grainers, who have 
a slovenly habit of not cleaning up the ends and corners. 
They remind us of men who wear good clothes, but who 
neglect to brush their hats and black their shoes. Care 
should be taken to carry the work closely and cleanly down 
in door-frames and base-boards to the contact line with 
their resting-places ; as also to cut closely and wipe cleanly 
along the joints and lines in paneled work. New pine 
wood-work, which is to be finished in imitation of any of 
the hard woods, should always be first coated with a color 
darker than the intended finish, and the first coat should 
be well sand-papered. The succeeding coats should be as 



188 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

dark as possible, with a view, of course, to the proper 
ground-tint for whatever kind of wood it is proposed to 
imitate. By such a course of procedure, the liability of 
the finished surface to accidental injury is very much less- 
ened. As the varnish becomes in time brittle, it will, 
under the accidental blows which it is in the nature of 
things subjected to, be liable to chip off, and, bringing the 
graining-color and ground-color with it, reveal the under- 
neath coats. If the color underneath be dark, the general 
appearance of the work is little defaced, compared with 
what it would be supposing the priming-coats were white. 

The writer has been at a loss to comprehend why men, 
as a rule, ordinarily practice a niggardly economy in respect 
to the painting of their houses, while exhibiting a profuse 
liberality in most other house decorations and embellish- 
ments, such as carpets, hangings, furniture, etc. 

An owner having decided upon the repainting of his 
domicile, seems naturally impressed with the idea that the 
proper thing to do is to call upon all the " trade " far and 
near, with the request that they come over and view his 
premises preparatory to furnishing estimates as to how 
cheaply the work may be done, it being understood that 
th€ painter who makes the lowest figures will ''get the 
job." Suppose the house, after repainting, shall require 
new furniture, carpets, hangings, etc., would any but a 
lunatic think, under the circumstances, of going to all the 
upholsterers in New York to obtain estimates of cost, with 
a view of letting out the work to the concern which would 
promise to do it for the least sum of money ? There is as 



aENERAL REMARKS. 189 

much latitude, in the way of quahty and kind, in house- 
painting — graining particularly — as in furniture and up- 
holstery. A grainer may paint a side of a door with an 
expenditure of ten cents' worth of labor, or he may bestow 
ten dollars' worth of labor on the same surface ; and he may 
finish it with varnish that costs him one dollar a gallon, or 
with varnish which costs six dollars per gallon. In view of 
these facts, it seems a little unreasonable that a proprietor, 
having chosen the cheapest thing offered, should find fault 
because the grained-work is spoiled by the cracking of the 
varnish, and that the blinds fade almost before the painter 
turns his back on his completed job. 

No person, even in having his house painted, should 
expect to receive for his money more than its worth ; and 
cheap tilings are, as a rule, the dearest in the end. That 
this is especially true of paints and painting, the writer 
knows from the closest observation and an every-day expe- 
rience of nearly forty years. 

The reader is earnestly requested not to lose sight of the 
important fact that these words are directed, not to the ex- 
perienced and practiced workman, but to the learner, the be- 
ginner ; not to him who can teach, but to him who is desir- 
ous of receiving instruction ; and the writer's task has not 
been a thankful one, because of the fact of how little can be 
taught by printed instructions in an operation which de- 
pends for its successful execution almost entirely upon the 
perceptive faculties. True, the hand must be educated, 
and the intellectual faculties must possess a knowledge of 
the requisite means and materials ; but the perceptive fac- 



190 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

ulties alone must be consulted as to the success or failure 
of the work. The eye only can tell whether or not the 
work is a creditable imitation of the wood which the work- 
man has attempted to copy. Once more we would impress 
upon the mind of the learner the importance and even neces- 
sity of attempting this work only with good and proper ma- 
terials. As before said, the first great difficulty in the way 
of the painter who would become a grainer has been obvi- 
ated by means of ready-made graining-colors. These are 
obtainable now almost everywhere, and when not at hand, 
or in the immediate neighborhood, may be ordered from 
the manufacturer at the additional cost only of express- 
charges. The cost of material for graining is but a trifle, 
as a pound of the best and finest color in market may be 
purchased at retail for about twenty-five cents, and this 
quantity would be sufficient to cover from thirty to forty 
doors. It will be safe to assume that the graining-color for 
one side of a door will cost not more than a cent. The 
best color will prove the cheapest, not only because of the 
greater surface it will spread over, but because the tone 
of color will best match the wood which it is intended to 
imitate. Cheap graining-colors, like all cheap adulterated 
paints, are simply worthless. 

The tint of the groundwork is important, but relatively 
so from the fact that the work may be made lighter or 
darker by the application of less or more of the graining- 
color. Nevertheless, it is better, and will cost less in time 
and trouble, to have the ground right to start with ; and 
we have given the proper materials for making the best 



GENERAL REiMARKS. 191 

ayerage ground for the various woods. Referring again to 
the groundwork, let us say that the surface should not be 
flat, but should present what is known among painters as 
an egg-shell gloss — that is, just so much oil should be used 
as will give this gloss, and no more. If more than the neces- 
sary quantity of oil be used, the paint will not rub smoothly, 
and a smooth, hard, even surface is indispensable with a 
good job of graining, particularly if the lights be taken out 
with the horn tool heretofore described. Every person who 
has studiously observed natural woods need not be told 
that no two widths in a wainscoting of narrow oak boards 
are precisely alike. They differ not only in grain and figure, 
but in tone of color, notwithstanding the general uniform- 
ity. Some of the boards will show a tone of color in which 
yellow is decidedly prominent. Other widths will show a 
brown, as of umber, in the plain portion. The grain also 
presents a variety of colors. Now, as all these variations 
are to be shown in the painted imitations upon a uniform 
ground, it follows that the tone of this ground must be 
yellow enough to display the yellowest samples which the 
natural wood presents. The browner tones can be readily 
produced by the application of a thicker coat of the grain- 
ing-color, whereby the yellow groundwork maybe concealed. 
No two adjoining boards in a wainscot should be just alike, 
both in grain and shade, while there should be no violent 
contrasts. Of the two evils, the least is a dead level of uni- 
formity. The first is only monotonous and unattractive, 
while the other is painfully suggestive of a failure to per- 
form a task which the skill of the workman was not equal 



192 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

to. Grained doors, particularly of light oak, should pre- 
sent corresponding panels similarly grained, as if sawed 
from the same log, supposing them to be natural wood. 
The work on a panel should be put in with reference to its 
corresponding companion, and not with its upper or lower 
.one, as the case may be ; that is, the two panels, side by 
side, should be grained with special reference to each other, 
and should be very similar in both color and grain. There 
must also be a general likeness in all the panels and the 
same character of work, and the same tone of color should 
be presented on all. The rails and stiles of the door will 
give sufficient opportunity for a display of the various kinds 
of grain and tones of color. As a rule, when the panels of 
a door are grained moderately plain, say with straight comb- 
ing and in dapples, a greater show of work is made on the 
rails and stiles, the middle rail and stiles generally being 
selected for the most elaborate figuring, the top and bot- 
tom rails being generally plain and lighter than the outer 
stiles, which are usually heavy and similar in appearance. 
Inconsiderate persons may rashly condemn this methodical 
arrangement as unnatural ; but every grainer knows how 
indispensable it is to insure a workmanlike job. "With the 
greatest variety there must be a certain uniformity. No 
first-class joiner or cabinet-maker would throw together the 
different pieces which go to make up a door or a piece of 
cabinet-work, without regard to selection. Such careless- 
ness would result in violent contrasts and disagreeable in- 
congruities. The advantage which the imitator has over 
the worker in natural woods is this : while the worker in 



GENERAL REMARKS. 193 

the real is restricted to such varieties as his stock presents, 
the grainer may give a " counterfeit presentment " of such 
selections as best comport and harmonize with the sur- 
roundings ; and, moreover, a piece of grained wood in the 
highest style of the art is more beautiful, and frequently 
more costly, than the same work would be if made of the 
natural wood. 

The aim of the writer, in giving suggestions as to the 
best mode of producing the proper tints and tones for 
groundwork for the various woods, has been to simplify 
the thing as much as possible ; to make plain, not to 
darken and confuse — the object being to save the work- 
man all unnecessary trouble and expense. The best and 
cheapest and most convenient simple material for making 
grounds for light oak, maple, ash, and chestnut, is pure 
raw Italian sienna, tinted with pure white-lead ; not the 
so-called sienna which is sold by most paint-dealers under 
that name, but the genuine article, which can be and should 
be obtained, even at some cost and trouble, the said color 
being one of the most useful and indispensable articles in 
the paint-shop. For maple-ground, of course, the smallest 
quantity is required, it being necessary only to change the 
white to the faintest suggestion of straw-color. For ash, 
the ground should be but little darker. For light oak 
more of the sienna will be required, while for chestnut a 
decidedly yellowish tone is wanted. Care should be taken 
not to make the grounds too dark — rather in the other 
extreme, for the reason that there is a remedy for a too 
light ground, in the application of a greater quantity of 



194 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

graining-color, as also in the glazing-coat ; while a ground 
too dark can not be made lighter. For dark oak, burnt 
Italian sienna with white will produce a far better ground 
than any other single color. The same caution must be 
observed, however, in obtaining this color, as was recom- 
mended in the case of the raw Italian sienna. The domes- 
tic so-called siennas will not prove substitutes for the gen- 
uine Italian pigments. 

The ground for black-walnut may be the same as for 
light oak, with the addition of a little burnt sienna and 
black. No two professed grainers, perhaps, will agree as 
to the exact tint of color for groundwork, each one having 
some predilection for a particular tone. These instructions 
being offered, not to the expert, but to the uninitiated, we 
do not propose to run counter to any man's prejudices, our 
object being, as aforesaid, to simplify the matter to the last 
possible degree. 

And now, having written all that seems important to 
the learner, and everything which in our view can tend to 
make plain to the novice the art of imitating woods with 
colored pigments, with an apology for any shortcomings, 
and a hope that no one will fail to find something instruc- 
tive in these pages, we bid adieu to this subject, and turn 
to fresh fields. 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

HOW TO PAINT A CARKIAGE. 

There are many ways of proceeding to the same ob- 
jective point, and doctors even will disagree as to the proper 
mode of treating the same symptoms. Coach-painters can 
liardly be supposed to be more unanimous than professors 
of the healing art, particularly when the latter-named fra- 
ternity are leagued by all sorts of oaths and bonds not to 
affiliate or hold consultation with a school of medicine 
which proposes to kill or cure by some irregular method. 

No doubt some will see a better road than we propose 
to travel to reach the same point, which is in every respect 
a perfect job in the way of carriage-painting. 

The writer does not belong to that class which takes 
it for granted that a thing is good because it is new ; nor 
to those who cling to a time-honored custom simply for 
the reason that the same is sanctioned by long use ; nor 
to those who believe that any particular theory or mode 
of procedure includes all that is good and avoids all which 
is bad. 

The prejudices of craftsmen are difficult to meet and 



196 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

hard to overcome. One clings to a system and dogmatically 
pronounces it best, simply because lie has never tried any 
other, and he hates innovation. Another readily adopts or 
tries all suggested improvements, and becomes an innovator 
because of the charms and excitements of novelty. As a 
rule, the first will win in the race ; but the second is useful 
in his day and generation. 

"Without attempting to trace the progress of improve- 
ment in vehicular construction, from the rude log-wheel 
carts of the ancients to the graceful and elegant vehicles of 
the present day, it may be asserted, without fear of contra- 
diction, that there are few things in our advanced civiliza- 
tion and refinement which are more attractive, which com- 
bine more fully the useful and the beautiful, than the 
gracefully modeled, luxurious and comfortable carriages 
which are turned out from first-class city and country man- 
ufactories. 

To paint a carriage in the highest style of the art re- 
quires a judgment matured, an eye to appreciate combina- 
tions and contrasts, and a hand cunning and skillful to 
execute and perform. In nothing more than this is it true 
that practice alone makes perfect. Written rules and direc- 
tions are valuable only as hints and suggestions which, if 
properly heeded and carried into practice, may lead to the 
correction of errors which exist because of the want of 
proper instructions. As well might one expect to educate 
the ear to harmonious combinations of sounds by a treatise 
on musical composition, as to teach the art of painting by 
mere words. Yet, while the finished workman needs no 



HOW TO FAINT A CARRIAGE. I97 

written rules, there are many tlirougliout our country, liv- 
ing remote from the. great centers of population, who pro- 
fess and practice the art of carriage-painting without the 
oj^portunity of perfecting themselves in the higher branches 
of the profession. In the hope that to such our directions 
may prove of practical benefit, we give the mode of pro- 
ceeding in the old method of carriage-painting. Of the 
new and shorter method we shall treat hereafter. 



CHAPTER XXXII. 

PREPAKATION OF THE SURFACE. 

As the priming or first coating of the new wood initi- 
ates the operation, that simple process requires a word or 
two at the start : first, as to what shall be the material 
used ; and, second, how to apply it. And these are impor- 
tant questions, as the durability of the job depends in no 
small degree on the soundness of the initiatory proceedings. 
It will not be denied that whatever material adheres most 
tenaciously to the wood, which best resists the changes of 
temperature, dryness and dampness, and wear and tear, is 
the best, whether it be white-lead and raw oil, boiled oil, 
or japan, or wood-filling, or any other substance. 

The Old Way of Pamting a Neto Carriage, 

For the first or priming coat, for the body, thin a small 
quantity of ground white-lead with raw linseed-oil, adding 
a few (say two or three) spoonfuls of japan for &, drier, and 
enough turpentine to make the paint work easily. Apply 
an even coat of this paint with an ordinary bristle paint- 



PREPARATION OF THE SURFACE. 199 

brush, taking care to work the color well into the nail- 
heads, crevices, and corners of the body, wheels, and car- 
riage-part. After the body has stood for four days for dry- 
ing, the carriage-part being meanwhile in the blacksmith's 
shop undergoing the process of ironing, mix the color for 
the second coat as follows : Dry white-lead, mixed stiff in 
japan and raw oil, equal parts, and ground through the 
mill. Thin to proper consistency with turpentine, and 
apply with an evenly-worn brush, taking care to work the 
color down smoothly. This coat should stand four days, 
for drying and hardening. After this, fill all the holes, 
crevices, chinks, and imperfections in the wood with hard 
putty, made thus : 

White-lead three parts. 

Whiting one part. 

Wet with a mixture of 

Linseed-oil two parts. 

Varnish two parts. 

Japan or gold-size one part, 

When filling the screw-heads and other hollows, allow 
the putty to stand a little above the surrounding parts ; 
that is, the holes should be more than full to allow for any 
possible shrinking. All open-grained wood, as ash, must 
be filled with soft putty, made of white-lead wet with equal 
parts of varnish and japan, using . a square-pointed putty- 
knife. Care must be taken to fill all the pores of the wood 
and thoroughly remove all superfluous material from the 
surface. Let the body stand three days ; at the end of 
which apply the second lead-coat, mixed, dry lead in three 



200 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

parts japan and one part oil ; mix stiff, reduce with tur- 
pentine, and apply as before. Observe that care should be 
taken to spread every coat evenly, whether it be lead, 
rough-stuff, or color. This should stand three days before 
the application of the third and last lead-coat, which 
should be dry lead, wet with four parts japan and one 
part oil. After two days (four is better, if not pressed 
for time) the body is ready for rough-stuff. We can sug- 
gest no better mode of mixing rough-stuff than the fol- 
lowing, viz. : 

English filling two parts. 

Dry white-lead two parts. 

Wet with a mixture of 

Varnish two parts. 

Japan one part. 

Oil one part. 

Gold-size one part. 

Make into a stiff paste, and reduce with turpentine to a 
proper consistency for spreading with a well-worn brush. 
This should be allowed two days for hardening before the 
application of the second coat, which should be mixed in 
one half the quantity of oil used in the first coat. The 
following day the third coat, in which no oil should be 
used, may be applied, and again the next day the fourth 
coat, which should be mixed the same as the third coat — 
that is, without oil. The rough-stuff should, of course, be 
ground finely through the mill, as should all the other 
mixtures into which dry lead enters as one of the compo- 
nent parts. The last coat of rough-stuff should be followed 



PREPARATION OF THE SURFACE. 201 

by the guide-coat of Frencli yellow ochre, mixed in Japan 
and turpentine. 

The body may now go to the smith's to be hung up. 
That done, the wood- worker should smooth up all places 
where the beds may project over the axles, put on bands, 
etc. The painting process should now be resumed by prim- 
ing the iron-work, which should stand two or three days to 
dry. While the carriage is hardening, the scouring of the 
body may be proceeded with. This should be done by an 
experienced hand, as great care is required to prevent the 
pumice-stone from cutting through the successive coats of 
paint to the wood. The lump of pumice-stone should be 
kept well filed, and plenty of water should be used to pre- 
vent the pores of the stone from becoming clogged with the 
paint. This process should be continued until none of the 
guide-coat is left, and, being completed, the body should be 
washed off with clean, cold water, using the water-tool for 
corners and for all places where the particles removed from 
the surface by the action of the pumice-stone are apt to 
collect. The body may now be left to dry for twentj^-four 
hours, and work resumed on the carriage-part. First, cut 
down thoroughly every part with No. 2 sand-paper, dust off 
and apply lead-coat mixed as follows, and ground finely 
through the mill : Dry white-lead, in equal parts of japan 
and raw oil, reduced with turpentine. Judgment is re- 
quired in the application of this coat, because, if the paint 
be too thin, the pores of the wood will remain unfilled, and, 
if too thick, it can not be spread evenly. Apply with bristle 
paint-brush, working the paint well into the wood. 



202 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

This coat should stand at least four da3^s for hardening ; 
but in the mean time it would be well to soft-putty the rims, 
faces of spokes, and all the flat surfaces of the carriage- 
part. Putty for this work should be made of dry white- 
lead, wet with equal parts of oil, japan, and varnish, using 
a square-bladed putty-knife. Work the filling well into 
the grain of the wood, taking care not to allow any to re- 
main on the surface, because any loose particles not re- ■ 
moved will crumble and fall away after the carriage has 
been for a time in use. 

Returning again to the body-part, work is resumed on 
that by going lightly over the whole surface with the very 
finest sand-paper used for such work. Particular pains 
must be taken to clean out all the corners ; and, should 
any imperfection be discovered, any holes or crevices re- 
main unfilled, the same must be stopped with quick putty, 
and the body will be ready for color. 

It is proposed to dispense with the old and, it seems to 
us, unnecessary custom of going over the work again with 
what is called the surface lead-coat. 

It will now be understood that the successive coats 
of paint, with the labor of rubbing and smoothing, have 
brought the surface to the best possible condition for re- 
ceiving the first coat of color. This surface, which has. 
been gained by the expenditure of so much time and labor, 
it should be the constant effort of the workman to preserve, 
because for a scratch or indentation there is no remedy but 
to go half-way back and begin again. 

It is proposed to finish this job in black, that being 



PREPARATION OF THE SURFACE. 203 

the most common as well as the most important of all the 
colors used in the carriage-shop. It does not take long to 
learn that black (which is the carbon resulting from the 
burning of animal bones in close vessels) is serviceable and 
valuable just in proportion to the minuteness of the division 
of the particles. Black, not finely ground, has little body 
and comparatively little adhesive property. The ordinary 
appliances and means for grinding colors in the paint-shop 
are not equal to the task of grinding black to that degree 
of fineness which is essential to produce the best effects in 
finished black-work. 

Nor has there been, either in this country or abroad, 
until a recent invention, any machinery whereby hard pig- 
ments like black and some of the lakes could be reduced 
to that impali3able fineness on which their value and good 
working qualities mainly depend, without adding so much 
to the cost as to put them beyond the use of coach-painters 
entirely. Asking pardon for this digression, and taking for 
granted that there are at hand ground colors for coach- 
painters' use, and that the body which was left ready for 
color is to be finished in the best style, the next proceeding 
is to open a one-pound can of ivory jet-black, which will be 
done in a second with the help of a penknife-blade. Black 
ground by means of this improved machinery will be found 
finer than a few years since it was thought possible to reduce 
any substance, and so soft and manageable that it incor- 
porates at once with the thinning, and the mixture be- 
comes as homogeneous as though it were all one substance. 
Enough of this black to go over the work is taken from 



204: HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

the can and thinned with turpentine, using a trifle of raw 
linseed-oil if there be time. Apply with a flat camel's-hair 
brush, which leaves no brush-marks. This coat had best 
stand one day before ■ the second coat of black is applied. 
That done, the work is ready for the first coat of varnish. 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 

CARRIAGE-VARXISHIXG. 

This is a most important point in the process of our 
work. So far, all has been done with reference to durabil- 
ity, as well as beauty ; and, as a coat of bad varnish will 
nullify all that has been done in that way, it behooves us 
to be not a little particular about the matter. It is not for 
us to say who makes the best rubbing- varnish, but we have 
no hesitation in saying what, in our opinion, a rubbing-var- 
nish should le to fulfill all the requirements of the occasion. 
It must flow smoothly ; it must dry hard, and yet elastic ; 
it must rub well, clean down well, and not sweat. If you 
can find a varnish fulfilling all these necessary conditions, 
no matter what name it may bear, apply a coat of it to the 
work in hand — not a heavy coat, but a light one — with a flat 
brush, of which there are several kinds intended specially 
for varnish. A thick, flat, badger-hair varnish-brush, of 
chisel-form, about three or three and a half inches wide, is 
recommended for such work as is now the subject of treat- 
ment. Such a brush, if well cared for, will last a lifetime 
and grow better with age. But let us return to the body, 



206 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

which was left with one coat of rubbing- varnish, and which 
must now be put aside to dry for three days. During this 
time work may be resumed on the carriage ; first, by going 
over it again with sand-paper ; and now care must be ex- 
ercised not to rub the sharp angles through to the wood. 
After this, dust off and apply the second lead-coat mixed 
as follows : Dry white-lead wet with a mixture of japan and 
oil, in the proportion of three parts of the former to one 
of the latter, and made stiff ; reduce with turpentine, and 
apply as before, observing the same directions as to grind- 
ing, reducing, etc. After three days another slight sand- 
papering, and the last lead-coat may be applied. In this 
last coat no oil need be used, but clear japan, and the paint 
should be applied as before. This being the last lead-coat, 
we, of course, depend upon it for the smooth, perfect sur- 
face required for the reception of the color, which, with 
striping and varnishing, is to complete the job. For cut- 
ting down this coat use No. 1 sand-paper, and be very care- 
ful to smooth out every corner and bead, and around every 
bolt-head, nut, etc., and remember that the bases of the 
spokes require attention equally with the centers, as also 
do the hubs and rims. This operation, simple as it may 
seem, is no ^^ child's play," and must not be intrusted to 
a careless hand, as the same amount of rubbing applied to 
the sharp corners as to the flat and rounded surfaces, will 
remove all the successive coats down to the wood ; and, as 
these parts receive most of the wear and tear of actual use, 
it follows that these, of all, require to be best protected 
with the paint. The smoothing being properly performed. 



CARRIAGE-VARNISHING, 207 

and tlie loose particles removed from every part, nooTc, and 
cornier, the work is ready for the first coat of color. That 
portion of the ground black remaining in the can after the 
painting of the body will be found — supposing it to have 
been kept well covered with turpentine — as soft and pliable 
as when first opened. Mix a proper quantity of this with 
turpentine, using oil if desired, and apply with a flat camel's- 
hair brush. Ten hours will be sufficient to dry this coat, 
when the second will follow, mixed the same as the first 
coat. If the work is to be finished with a very wide stripe, 
put this on before the first coat of varnish. The carriage- 
parts being ready for the first coat of varnish, apply rub- 
bing-varnish, which should be as good in every respect as 
that used on the body, and as carefully put on. Leaving 
this to harden, return to the body, which was left with one 
coat of varnish, and it will be found hard enough for the 
first rubbing. Provided with a piece of cloth or felt and 
finely pulverized pumice-stone, a water-tool, and plenty of 
clean, cold water, proceed to cut down the varnish as closely 
as possible, being careful not to go through to the color, and 
not to allow the pumice-stone to dry on the varnish ; use 
the water-tool freely in all the corners and around the 
moldings. This ojoeration will be repeated through three 
successive coats of varnish, and the body is ready for the 
trimming-shop. The carriage-part must now be subjected 
to the same rubbing process as has been applied to the body. 
This work must not be intrusted to unskillful hands. An 
expert only can do it to perfection. If performed by in- 
experienced hande, the result will be an untimely stripping 



208 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

of all the sharp angles, and the prosioect of a well-finished 
job materially impaired. Supposing this delicate operation 
to be successfully performed, the striping is next in order. 
On this subject there is not much to be said. If any one 
supposes he can do this because he has been told ^' how to 
do it," a single attempt will be all-sufficient to cure him of 
his vain delusion. There is no royal road to this accom- 
plishment ; its attainment is through the steep path of 
long-continued practice. The striping done and dry, a 
thorough washing must follow, and be sure that every par- 
ticle of dust you leave upon the work will be found by the 
varnish-brush, and carelessness in this respect has too often 
called down maledictions on the head of the innocent var- 
nish-maker. The carriage-parts, removed to the varnish- 
room, are ready for the finishing-coat, and the writer con- 
fesses himself at a loss how to give any hints even which 
shall prove of value as to the successful performance of this, 
of all, the most important in the whole proceeding. A 
knowledge, not only of the nature of varnish generally, 
but of the particular varnish to be used in the operation, is 
indispensable to success. To become an adept in this art 
requires long experience, confidence, and self-possession ; 
and, we may add, a good conscience. A mistake in this 
is little less than a crime ! And your shortcoming will not 
only rise in judgment against you, but will be known and 
read of all men. 

The body received from the trimming-shop is ready for 
rubbing, preparatory to the finishing-coat of varnish. This, 
too, is a delicate piece of work, and requires judgment, skill. 



CARRIA GE- VARNISHING. 209 

and practice. Eemember that a mote on a panel becomes 
a beam in the eye of the beholder, and the smallest speck 
looms up like a distant hill in a misty atmosphere. Hav- 
ing completed it (for better or worse), close the door rever- 
ently behind you, lock it, call on your good angel to pro- 
tect your work from harm, and await the result. 

If not pressed for time, it will be well to allow the body 
to stand over one night before finishing. Kemove it to the 
finishing-room, which was put in order the previous even- 
ing ; wash it off thoroughly with cold, clean water, using 
a clean sponge and a chamois-skin which has been well 
broken in. Do not use dusters which have been used on 
lead or color, or the moldings will be discolored. After 
dusting off well, take a dry, flat fitch-brush, and wet the 
ends of the hair with a small quantity of varnish. Let 
this stand for half an hour, and then go carefully and 
lightly over the whole surface. This will pick up every 
particle of lint and dust, and there remains only to apply 
the varnish. This you will do, as you say your prayers, 
alone, and, having finished it, you may retire, quietly lock- 
ing the door behind you, keeping it locked until the sur- 
face is no longer liable to injury from dust. 

The next thing in order is to care for the tools. The 
brush used for picking up the lint should be first softened 
with a little oil, and then thoroughly washed with soap and 
water, and carefully put away for future use. Eemember 
that good work depends in a great measure on the strictest 
attention to cleanliness ; and a sloven can not, in the na- 
ture of things, produce a perfect job in carriage-painting. 



210 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

^^ Neatness, order, and economy^^ should be tlie motto in 
every paint-shop. 

The work which has been under way for a period of five 
weeks may now be looked upon as finished. It may stand a 
few days to harden, and then be hung up. The bolts, etc., 
having been blacked off and dry, the completed carriage 
should receive the first of repeated washings which it is 
destined to undergo ; but this clean, cold-water washing 
should be done by an experienced hand ; otherwise it is 
better left undone. If properly performed, it will tend to 
harden the varnish and will rather improve the general ap- 
pearance. The finished vehicle may now be turned out for 
service, and there need be little apprehension that the 
painting will not prove a durable and creditable job. It 
might have been completed in much less time, and have 
presented to the eye quite as good an appearance. A great 
many carriages are so finished, and they may, and do, no 
doubt, stand the ordinary wear and tear of country roads 
pretty well ; but, for use on city pavements, time is an 
indispensable element, and it would not be safe to finish 
work for city wear in less time than we have given to the 
job in hand, unless some other and shorter method be 
adopted. 



CHAPTEE XXXIY 



THE NEW METHOD. 



FOE the last ten years ways and means have been de- 
vised, and many efforts made, to shorten the process of car- 
riage-painting — to expedite the work and turn it out in less 
time. The pace has not been fast enough for the '' times," 
and quicker, shorter ways of arriving at the same result 
have been sought for, if not discovered. Keeping in mind 
the grand, pervading principle of compensation, we are not 
of those who believe the time heretofore deemed necessary to 
produce a first-class job of coach-painting can' be materially 
shortened, at the same tim_e retaining all the good features 
and results of the slow process : that is to say, the chances are 
, altogether in favor of durability, when oil enough has been 
. used in the painting to insure elasticity, and prevent the 
material from drying to that flinty hardness which can not 
be supposed to bear the shaking and concussions which all 
j^ wheeled vehicles on city pavements are necessarily subjected 
to, without cracking and, perhaps, chipping off. In short, 
the mode of painting carriages, such as we have described 
in the foregoing pages of this book, involves the expendi- 



212 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

ture of a certain number of days, which can not be materi- 
ally curtailed without incurring the risk of what has been 
too common of late, yiz., jobs which soon perish with the 
using. If haste be a sme qua non with the painter, if the 
work must be completed in half the time heretofore deemed 
essential in the production of enduring carriage-painting, 
it is suggested that some other mode be adopted. If we 
will have railroad speed, we must abandon the stage-coach 
system. 

In writing about our *^ new way," we propose to give 
the results of our own experience — to present the facts as 
we find them, leaving every man to his own Judgment as to 
which course he will adopt or pursue. 

Some time has elapsed since we inaugurated our experi- 
ments and practice, looking to the compounding of such a 
mixture as would permit of shortening the time without 
impairing the durability. 

We have long been of the opinion that coach-painting 
could be reduced to a more perfect system, resulting in the 
end in more durable work at a less cost. All our experi- 
ments have, therefore, tended toward bringing about such a 
result. As remarked in the second chapter of this treatise, 
and Chapter XXXII of the book, the "priming" being 
all-important, we have concentrated our efforts in the di- 
rection of producing such a substance as shall close the 
pores of the wood against the absorption of after-coats, as 
well as of dampness. In a word, this substance is intended 
to cement the surface of the wood. Our experiments have 
resulted in a " priming " for first coats upon new wood and 



THE NEW METHOD. 213 

iron, which comes nearer to possessing the above-named 
desirable qualities than any article ever used for coach- 
painting. 

The results of these experiments are as follows : 

1. The eifectual closing of the pores of the wood, so as 
to prevent the possibility of dampness going through the 
priming. 

2. Absolute certainty that oil used in after-coats will 
not be absorbed by the wood ; and, as a consequence, the 
effectual prevention of the showing of the grain after the 
work in hand shall have been finished. 

3. Dryiug to a hardness which insures a solid founda- 
tion, and the j^aint, having become cemented into the grain 
of the wood, can not be made to chip or flake off. 

To give the reader a clearer idea of what we mean by 
cementing the surface of the wood, we make the following 
illustration : 

It is well known that a coat of lead in linseed-oil, ap- 
plied to a sheet of tin, will not, after it has become dry and 
hard, lose its elasticity, simply for the reason that the tin 
does not absorb the oil. 

The same mixture, applied to wood, will become, in the 
process of drying and hardening, lifeless and brittle, be- 
cause of the fact that the ever-hungry wood will absorb or 
drink up the oil and leave the pigment dry. To close the 
surface against such absorption is what this new priming 
is intended to do ; and if this be accomplished, all '^ after- 
coats" must necessarily retain their elasticity, and, once 
hard, *^ grain-showing" is effectually prevented ; which, in 



214 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

our opinion, has always been caused by the porous wood 
taking in a large proportion of the oils with which prim- 
ings are compounded, leaving the pigment dry and non- 
elastic. In considering this matter, we have not lost sight 
of the fact that the wood-fillers now in use, which never 
become hard, but retain their stickiness, are in every sense 
as bad as the substance from which the wood will absorb 
all elasticity, lecause such a coat being soft when succeed- 
ing coats are applied, there is a gradual giving way of the 
whole foundation, thus affecting the finishing-coat of var- 
nish and causing a broken surface. 

It is not to be supposed that any new claimant for 
public favor can find it all at once. Many pertinaciously 
cling to what has been tried and not found wanting. The 
bridge is good which carries safely. 

But to the modus operandi. This priming should be 
proceeded with as in the use of lead. It must be put on 
evenly and well brushed into the grain of the wood, and 
under no circumstances must the beads and corners be left 
full of the material. 

A short, well-worn brush is best for applying it, and 
the work should stand two days before the application of 
the first coat of rough-staff. Putty on this coat of rough- 
stuff after two days (summer heat), and give the putty two 
days to harden before applying the second coat, and then 
api^ly a coat a day until the job is filled. 

Apply the guide-coat and rub down and finish as in the 
old way. The carriage - part, coming from the smith's, 
should be trimmed up, bands put on, etc., and thoroughly 



THE NEW METHOD. 215 

sand-papered, cutting close down to the wood. Dust off 
carefully and apply the coat of priming to every part, iron- 
work included. Brush the priming well into the grain, tak- 
ing care not to use too much. A thin coat is best. Next 
day putty rims, faces of spokes, and all flat places evenly 
with soft putty made elastic. The usual mode of proceeding 
is to smooth down next day for color ; but our j)ractice has 
been to apply with a flat camel's-hair brush a coat of '* car- 
riage-part filling," reduced with turpentine to the consist- 
ency of color, previous to sand-papering ; this will insure a 
perfect surface. By adopting this mode of proceeding, the 
sand-paper will not be apt to clog, and tear up the "prim- 
ing," and, if proper care be exhibited in rubbing down, the 
carriage-part filling will come off, and there will remain a 
good surface without injury to the foundation. Sand-paper 
the next day, dust off, and apply first coat of color, made 
more elastic with oil and varnish than for coloring over 
lead-paint. 

From this point all subsequent proceedings up to the 
finish will be the same as the old method. 

Such has been our mode of proceeding in the use of the 
*' new priming." There may be better and shorter meth- 
ods, but the results of our experiments have been satis- 
factory. 

Disclaiming any intention of dictating a rule of action 
for the conduct of others, we suggest a trial of the mode 
above described to those who have not given the matter 
any attention. Every painter is supposed to have his own 
peculiar ways and notions as to how painting should be 



216 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

done. With these we have no desire or intention of inter- 
fering. The trade of coach-painting is not to he classed 
with mere mechanic routine. It rises out of mechanical 
drudgery into the domain of art. The ability to perform 
such work in all its possible completeness and perfection is 
an accomplishment of which any man may be justly proud. 
It does not seem that any labor-saving machinery can be 
brought to bear upon it in such a way as to lessen the ne- 
cessity for cunning and skill, for education and taste. 

Referring again briefly to the new mode of carriage- 
painting, we would remark that the question of time, du- 
rability, and cost, being all involved in it, the subject is 
entitled to a careful investigation. 



CHAPTER XXXV. 



PAINTING AND VARNISHING. 



Painting and varnishing are operations which are not 

generally considered in their true respective forms and 

proper light. These operations are in the nature of things 

akin to that of plastering, and should be so looked at if we 

would find the true cause of, and remedy for, the troubles 

which the work of carriage-painting necessarily involves. 

We allude now to the trouble known as chipping, peeling, 

or cleaving of the varnish from the underneath coat or 

surface of color. Painting differs from plastering mainly 

in the lesser quantity of material used, and in the different 

modes of application — the one being done with a brush, 

the other with a trowel ; but it is equally necessary and 

important, in either operation, that there shall be a surface 

to which the material may cling and fasten ; or it will drop 

off from the spoke or wall — as the case may be — whenever 

the dislocating force shall be sufficient to overcome the 

slight cohesive power of the particles of paint, or plaster, 

or varnish. 

If a plasterer should put his first coat of mortar on 
10 



218 HOUSE AND CAREIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

laths which wei;e closely in contact — each particular lath 
as near to its neighbor as the lathing-man could stick it — 
and that plaster should, on drying, drop off, what would 
be thought of the mason who should complain that the 
lime, the sand, and hair, were deficient in adhesive quali- 
ties ? Or, suppose the plasterer should put a coat of hard 
finish on a previous coat of the same— taking care to grease 
the first coat well — and should, on the dropping off of the 
final coat, cry out against the plaster, and on that unof- 
fending material lay all the blame of his shortcomings ? 

The object in this present writing is to set forth, as 
lucidly as may be, the general and particular failings and 
shortcomings of carriage-painting, as usually, and we may 
say almost universally, practiced. The obstacles in the way 
of first-class work are not few or strange. All who are in 
the trade are familiar with their several and respective feat- 
ures, and would gladly be rid of them. In naming these 
shortcomings, we put them in their order of importance 
and frequency, thus : cracking of paint and varnish, chip- 
ping or flaking of varnish, and premature perishing of 
paint and varnish when the foregoiiig-Tisimed mishaps shall 
have been avoided. 

Now, there can be no doubt of an existing disposition 
on the part of carriage makers and painters to so examine 
this question as to arrive at the true cause or causes of 
these accidents, and, if possible, to prevent their recur- 
rence. We are talking of no new thing, but of what has 
occurred often and again, and which we fear will recur, in 
spite of all we may write to the contrary. 



PAINTING AND VARNISHING. 219 

If this monster had a single head, we might kill it at a 
blow ; but, unfortunately, it is "hydra-headed," and when 
one head is killed another freshly succeeds to its place. 
So, to account for all these mishaps at a word, seems sim- 
ply impossible. A primary cause of failure in the painting 
department of carriage-manufacturing may be the partial 
seasoning of the timber, and consequent shrinkage and 
rearrangement of the particles. Weather-changes during 
the process of painting and varnishing may be potent for 
evil, and most difficult to understand and guard against. 
Badly ventilated work-rooms, where no provision is made 
for needed circulation of air ; adulteration of leads, col- 
ors, oils, turpentine, varnish, and driers, are fruitful 
sources of evil. Want of skill and good judgment on the 
part of the workman cause many calamities ; rubbing- var- 
nish made to dry in a day, plentifully cheapened with 
resin ; japans made from kauri-gum or dammar, or both ; 
mixing of color without regard to proportions in the thin- 
ning materials ; the introduction of different driers with- 
out kno tvledge of what the result of such mixing will be ; 
lastly, and most prolific source of evil, is the undue haste 
in the completion of the job in hand, with little or no 
regard to the time actually necessary to properly accom- 
plish a first-class piece of work. 

We do not pretend to have enumerated all the causes of 
failure, but enough, possibly, for the present theme. 



CHAPTER XXXVI. 

EVILS Ais'D THEIR REMEDIES. 

Next in importance to finding out a cause of evil, is to 
provide or suggest a remedy. We would like to present a 
remedy for every ill, and make the way so plain that any 
man, though a coach-painter, need not err therein. How 
to do it, and how not to do it, are now the questions. 
Listen to our theory : Assuming the wood to be properly 
seasoned and ready for paint, the priming is most impor- 
tant ; because it is absolutely necessary that the coating on 
the wood shall hold its place from first to last — through 
thick and thin — under all vicissitudes and untoward circum- 
stances, giving or yielding not a jot, not a particle. With 
such a foundation good work is possible ; without it, not. 
What shall it be ? Not something that will dry in half a 
day. As a rule, the longer paint stands without hardening 
— supposing the same to be properly compounded — the 
more tenaciously it will cling to the surface on which it 
may be placed. All drying substances tend to lessen the 
enduring qualities of linseed-oil and hasten its disintegra- 
tion and decay. Therefore, the more oil in the priming- 



EVILS AND THEIR REMEDIES. 221 

coat the better — supposing it shall have ample time to dry. 
We treat now of the old process of lead-priming ; but there 
is a proper system and a key-note ; and that key-note once 
struck, all after-proceedings should be in consonance with 
its vibration. If the key-note be the lightning-speed 
process, let all subsequent proceedings be in harmony there- 
with. Better so, than introduce an elastic stratum some- 
where in the layers. A quick-drying color put on a foun- 
dation which is soft all the way up, will, in the nature of 
things, crack all over. This is an every-day experience, 
and the disappointed workman — wanting a better theory — 
lays the blame upon the color. Hasty and ill-considered 
condemnation shows want of balance. Before laying the 
blame on the color and condemning it, the painter should 
assure himself that there exists no other possible cause for 
the disaster. A coat of the same color, applied to an old 
spoke or to a strip of glass, would probably exhibit an en- 
tirely different state of things. But to return. Suppose 
the work to have received an honest coat of priming, and 
the workman compelled to rush that work along, without 
giving the first coat a fair time and chance to harden prop- 
erly. Making the best of the conditions and requirements, 
the painter (who is, we suppose, a man of long experience 
and sound judgment) puts on another coat of lead prop- 
erly mixed, and, in consonance with the theory of following 
the key-note, keeps this, as all succeeding coats, sufficiently 
elastic to prevent cracking, yet knowing all the time that 
none of the coats are. hard, but the mass is soft all the way 
through. Now, in finishing over this foundation, he will 



222 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

— ^being, as aforesaid, a man of sound discretion — use an 
elastic varnish, and so do the best that can be done under 
such circumstances. The work being finished, and run 
out, and put to the test of actual wear and tear, will show 
— what result ? It may not crack nor chip, but nothing 
is more certain tlian the fact that — ^like the seed sown on 
stony ground — it will perish, alas ! all too soon. The fact 
must not be lost sight of, but kept ever before the eye and 
the mind, that in carriage-painting — as in almost every 
other process in art and science — time is an element which 
can not be disregarded with impunity. On the contrary, 
it must receive its due weight and acknowledgment, or 
the operation wherein it shall not be properly heeded will 
end in disaster. If the manufacturer will not afford the 
painter proper and reasonable time wherein he may accom- 
plish his work, he should at least have the grace to put the 
blame for failure where it properly belongs, and not on the 
shoulders of the innocent workman, or, still worse, on the 
head of the maker of the last thin coat of color. We be- 
lieve the case of the captive children of Israel has its parallel 
in the carriage-trade, and that the carriage-painter is often- 
times required to perform a labor more difficult of accom- 
plishment than was required of the Jewish bondmen by 
their Egyptian taskmasters. To make sun-dried bricks 
without straw may, so far as we know, be within the limit 
of human ingenuity ; but to begin and complete the paint- 
ing and varnishing of a carriage — so as to secure the best 
results as to durability — in the space of two weeks, is a feat 
beyond the skill of any man who ever yet painted carriages 



EVILS AND THEIR REMEDIES. 223 

on this mundane sphere. What the denizens of the lunar 
conglomeration may be equal to, in this line, we shall know 
one of these days, perhai)s ! * 

Again, the painter or workman is too often required to 
do in a given time what can not be properly accomplished 
within the specified limits. Take, for example, that most 
important work of properly filling up a carriage-part, keep- 
ing the corners clean, and smoothing up every part as it 
should be. Let us anticipate the consequences in a case 
where the painter is required to do this job in about 
one quarter of the time which should properly be devoted 
to it. In the very best aspect of the case, there must of 
necessity be masses of thick paint left in the corners, 
around clips, between the leaves of the springs, and at the 
end of every spoke, which should not, with a view to a 
durable job, have been left to repose there. No amount 
of time given this work to dry, no care in the details of 
finishing, ornamenting, or varnishing, will prevent these 
masses of dried putty, as it were, from being disengaged 
from their resting-places and dropping off when this car- 
riage is subjected to the jolting and consequent vibration 
caused by roiling the wheels over stone-paved streets. 



CHAPTER XXXVII. 

CLEAVING OF VARNISH FROM THE COLOR. 

The next most common and vexatious trouble with 
the painting, is the flaking or cleaving of varnish from 
the color. This is no new thing, but has existed, we sup- 
pose, since the invention of the art of varnish-making. 
Some of the causes of this anno^dng accident may be enu- 
merated here — we do not pretend to give them all — as fol- 
lows : Cotton-seed oil in the color, however small the quan- 
tity, is a prolific source of evil in causing the varnish to 
flake ; japan, made from inferior shellac, mixed with other 
and cheaper gums ; color mixed with japan, varnish, and 
oil, when the due proportion of each is not properly at- 
tended to ; varnishing over a glossy surface ; fatty sub- 
stances, whether turpentine, oil, or paint ; certain rubbing- 
varnishes unskillfully or carelessly made, or made from 
unsuitable materials, will cause this trouble. These are 
among the sources of this evil. No doubt there are others. 
A word of caution to painters just now may be pertinent. 
If you do use oil or varnish in ground colors, even in those 
ground in the shop, bear in mind the fact that the latter 



CLEAVING OF VARNISH FROM THE COLOR. 225 

must ill all cases be superior in quantity to the oil. No 
doubt, trouble in many paint-shops has resulted because 
the painter has never fully appreciated the fact that var- 
nish, oil, shellac, japan, and turpentine may be so mixed as 
to give a surface which no rubbing-varnish will adhere to. 
Really, too much caution can not be exercised in putting 
'these thinners together. There is nothing so good for a 
^'binder" as pure, unboiled linseed-oil, because it rarely, 
if ever, gives trouble, if used only in proper quantity and 
proportion. 

A glassy surface must not be varnished, but must be 
reduced to a "scratch -coat" by the application of pumice- 
stone and water. 

The use of two driers in the same color is deprecated, un- 
less the user shall know, with a knowledge gained by abun- 
dant experience, just what the effect of such mixing will be, 
and whether or not these driers will work well together. 

Colors must never be finished with a japan gloss. 

All paints, oil, driers, and turpentine should be kept, as 
far as possible, in air-tight vessels. Color-cups must be kept 
covered, to exclude dust and air. 

Every foreman in a carriage paint-shop should mix all 
the colors, supposing he has time so to do. If not, he 
should intrust this most important operation to some one 
experienced hand, and not to any man or boy he may have 
under his charge. By strict attention to these little de- 
tails, many of the troubles of the paint-shop — as pitting of 
varnish, cracking, flaking, or premature perishing of the 
whole — mav be avoided. 



226 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

Now we come to a point in this question wherefrom we 
propose to discuss the comparative merits of ground colors 
with those as before produced in the carriage paint-shop. 
First, we claim that these colors are economical to the last 
degree ; that to use them costs nothing, for the reason that 
the labor of producing their equivalent in the paint-shop 
would be more than the cost of ready-prepared colors.- 
Second, they are permanent beyond anything ever dis- 
played ; and uniform to a degree that the painter need 
have no fear of not being able to duplicate any job he may 
have before turned out. 

It is claimed that, since the introduction of prepared col- 
ors, the waste in the paint-shoj^ is one third less than before ; 
that the labor and waste in grinding colors in the paint- 
shop exceed the prime cost of these goods ; also, that there 
is a saving in varnish, as no extra quantity need be applied 
to cover up a sanded surface. The claim is, that the labor 
of painting a carriage is much lessened by the use of these 
colors, and that the labor and tim^ saved by the use of 
ready-made colors in painting a carriage will be more than 
the cost of the paint consumed in the job. This is a feature 
to which we would call the special attention of the manu- 
facturer, because of the fact that while the outlay of money 
for materials is something tangible and always patent, the 
expenditure for labor is in a measure intangible — ^less ob- 
servable, and much more difficult to measure, and weigh, 
and count. There is, too, what we choose to designate as a 
false economy — a '^penny-wise" policy — exhibited too fre- 
quently by purchasers of colors, which in other departments 



CLEAVING OF VARNISH FROM THE COLOR. 227 

would be looked upon as extreme folly and stupidity. We 
allude to the common practice of procuring paints similar 
in name to those which the purchaser has been using, sim- 
ply because these paints are offered at a nominally lower 
price. In too many cases the consumer does not take the 
trouble to learn, by experimental test, whether the nomi- 
nally cheaper colors are worth as much as half, or only a 
quarter as much, as those he has been using ; but rushes to 
the conclusion that, being cheaper in naine, they must of 
course be cheaper in fad. There is, too, in this, a peculiar 
absurdity, from the fact that the cost of the color actually 
consumed on the finish-coat of any light carriage is very 
trifling, and that which works best and covers the under- 
coat most comj)letely, everything else being equal, is the 
cheapest at whatever reasonable price, because of the con- 
sequent saving of material and labor. Any sane person 
in the trade will admit that a painter would not necessarily 
have made a good bargain simply because he had bought a 
hundred pounds of so-called coach-black at ten cents a 
pound. The chaffering for a few cents a pound difference 
between an article that has been tried and never found 
wanting, and one which has never been tested, is, we think, 
not the right road to true economy. For example, sup- 
pose you have been using a certain black, and have found it 
to be uniformly fine, of good body — always working and 
covering well, and drying invariably so as to take varnisli 
in the number of hours allotted to it. In the strife and 
competition for trade, some would-be rival or competitor 
offers you a paint in substitution of this well-proved article 



228 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

— ^bearing the same name, at a price ten cents a pound less 
than you paid for the former color. Of course, in using 
this you are trying an experiment to your own cost if it 
fail, and with a gain so small, in case of success, that there 
is nothing in the best aspect of the case to pay for the risk. 
One pound of a certain black will, say, coat two light car- 
riage-parts. Admitting that the ten cents a pound is an 
important item, there yet remains the fact that the greatest 
possible accomplishment in the way of saving would be 
five cents on a four-hundred-dollar job ; while, at the same 
time, the experiment may involve a loss of twenty or thirty 
dollars, and possibly two or three days' delay. Again, 
there is another most important feature involved, viz., the 
question of permanence, of durability. This can be tested 
only by time ; and years must necessarily elapse before this 
question can be settled. AYe would not convey the idea 
that the practice of such false economy is common in the 
trade ; indeed, such practice is the exception and not the 
rule ; but there are, and always will be, in every calling, 
short-sighted individuals, who take the name for the thing — 
the word for the fact. 



CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

HOW TO GET THE BEST KESULTS. 

Havikg detailed somewhat this question of sui:)erioritv, 
we take it for granted that all will admit the correctness of 
our premises and our conclusions ; as also the fact that 
much has been accomplished in the way of lifting the 
business of carriage-painting out of the slough of despond 
— so to speak — in which it once was, and in overcoming 
the most formidable of the difficulties heretofore existing 
in the carriage paint-shop. All this has not been done 
without a vast expenditure of time, talent, energy, experi- 
ence, and money. Machinery best adapted to bring about 
the desired result has been constructed without regard to 
cost, and vexation and disappointment were in many in- 
stances the only fruits of costly and laborious experiments. 
The demand for ground colors is certainly and steadily ex- 
tending, and in a few years will include all places where, 
in the civilized world, carriages are made and painted. 
Admitting all these claims, the next question in importance 
to the trade is how, in what way, by what mode of proceed- 
ing, can the best results be realized in the use of ready- 
made colors. 



230 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

Listen while we review the subject in the light of ten 
years' every-day experience, and set forth what we have 
found to be the best way to do it. Premising with the 
somewhat trite proverb that "economy is wealth," we 
would impress most distinctly the importance of not taking 
from the opened can of paint more material than is just 
amply sufficient to complete the job in hand. This point 
having received due attention, scrape cleanly and neatly 
the color from the sides of the can, level the top of the re- 
maining mass evenly, and pour thereon sufficient turpen- 
tine to quite submerge the whole ; then cover all with the 
top of the can, and put away carefully for future use. 
We refer now, of course, to the ordinary can. With the 
patent-press can, the contents will, as it were, take care of 
themselves. We take it for granted that the mixing-cup 
was scrupulously clean to begin with. In thinning, first 
add a small quantity of turpentine, and stir till the whole 
mass becomes smooth and homogeneous. Do not add the 
turpentine all at once. First stir the color before adding 
any ; then pour it in, little by little, stirring all the time, 
until the contents of the cup shall present a smooth, even 
mass, giving it the appearance of a perfect solution. The 
color now under consideration is suj^posed to be black. In 
its present state it is a quick-drying substance, and if the 
exigencies of the case required, could be used so as to dry 
ready for varnish in less than an hour of time. This same 
mixture, if put over a ground not thoroughly hard and 
dry, would crack all to pieces. To escape this dilemma, 
supposing the workman is required to finish quickly over a 



HOW TO GET THE BEST RESULTS. 231 

soft underneath, we would suggest adding to the color a 
quantity of elastic rubbing- varnish, so that the coat will 
dry — not hard, but, in a measure, yielding. The present 
case, however, supposes ample time and no extraordinary 
haste, and that the mode of operation is to apply one coat 
of color only on a single day — which is, in our judgment, 
the right course ; in such case, leave out a portion of the 
turpentine, and add in lieu thereof a small quantity of pure 
raw linseed-oil. As before said, this black, thinned wholly 
with turpentine, will dry ready for varnish in an hour's 
time, or less ; and this coat may be varnished over in that 
short time with safety, supposing the ground to be per- 
fectly hard, but not otherwise. Yet we claim that, for 
many reasons, it will always be better to leave the job un- 
varnished overnight. Black, if varnished too quickly, will 
not give the same shade and density of color as when 
allowed ample time to dry. Any doubts existing as to the 
correctness of this theory may be removed by the following- 
described proceedings : Let the painter take an old sjioke, 
paint it black, and leave it to dry overnight. Next morn- 
ing, let him draw a broad line through the center of it, 
using the same color as in the first coat, and in an hour 
after putting on the stripe let him varnish over all. This 
coat of varnish will reveal the fact that the stripe is not 
so black as the body of the spoke by ten shades. This 
is one good reason why a black coating of color should be 
left overnight before varnishing. Another reason for such 
a course is, that long experience has taught us that no 
painter, however skiflful, can perform a perfectly satisfac- 



232 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

tory job in coach-painting who does not give each and 
every coat of paint and varnish time to become dry and 
hard all the way through. In our judgment, ninety per 
cent, of all the carriage-painting done in the United States 
is done too quickly ; yet we admit that some of the best 
jobs — to look at — have been done in this manner. Such 
work, however, when put to the test of actual use, does 
not endure as does work where time has been duly given to 
all the processes. 

Referring again to the discoloration of black because 
of being varnished over too quickly, and of the occasional 
complaints because of this, we have to request that each 
and every painter among our readers shall investigate this 
question for himself and his own convincing. 

We do not propose to consider each and every of fifty 
or more coach-painters' colors in detail. "What has been 
said respecting black will apply in a general way to all the 
body-colors. It is, no doubt, true that most of the fore- 
men painters in the carriage-shops throughout the country 
have, by use and experience, familiarized themselves with 
ground colors to such an extent that they require no advice 
or direction in the matter. Yet there are doubtless many 
in the trade who would gladly receive instruction as to the 
way of working lakes and carmines, in order to produce 
the best results with the least expenditure of labor and 
material. 

In all operations, a great deal depends on getting a fair 
start. Therefore, we would have all learners lay to heart 
this important truth : in all lake or carmine jobs, let the 



HOW TO GET THE BEST RESULTS. 233 

ground he as close an imitation i7i tone of color to the glaz- 
ing as possible. This we believe to be the proper starting- 
point, although we are conscious of the fact that we are 
not in this particular in full agreement with every member 
of the trade. To those, however, who would take excep- 
tion to this our position, we would put a query : Would 
you attempt to produce a good Job in carmine by glazing 
over a black ground ? We anticipate to this question an 
answer unmistakably negative. If, then, to produce a 
good job in carmine — which is not only the brightest in 
color, but the most transparent of all the lakes — requires a 
rich ground in correspondence, with itself, can there be 
any reason why the same rule does not hold good with all 
glazing colors ? Supposing, then, the adoption of this 
principle, and the work prepared in accordance thereto, 
the next important question is the preparation of the color. 
It is taken for granted that the cup is clean, and that only 
enough color has been taken from the can to finish the 
work. To this must be added a very small quantity of pure 
spirits of turpentine, which must be well stirred in and 
thoroughly incorporated with the color. TMs must be re- 
peated until the color in the cup is well broken up, smooth 
in the mass, and entirely homogeneous. Then add as much 
raw linseed-oil as the color will bear, and yet dry, ready for 
varnish, by standing overnight. After the oil, add turpen- 
tine to thin to proper working consistency. It must work 
freely and flow perfectly. Nothing can be gained, but 
much may be lost, by working the color too thick. If the 
foregoing directions be followed, and the color be applied 



234 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

Avitli a flat camel's-hair brush hy a good luorhnan, there need 
be no fear as to the result. One coat of color and one of 
color in yarnish upon a carriage-part will be enough ; but 
this will not be sufficient for panels. Another mode of 
operation in transparent painting is to ^wi the color in var- 
nish and flow on over the ground. This is, perhaps, the 
best mode in painting todies, as a little color can be put in 
each succeeding coat of varnish until the last, which, of 
course, must be clear. This will give the best possible tint 
or color, and will prove a lasting job. 



CHAPTER XXXIX. 



ADULTERATION AKD WASTE. 



The money value of paint wasted in this country is 
enormous — greater, perhaps, than in all the world besides. 
Our reckless prodigality, in a certain way, is only equaled 
by our absurd attempts at economy. For example : a 
painter will sometimes speiid the time and exertion neces- 
sary to walk a mile, all for the purpose of purchasing a 
can of paint a shilling less than he can buy it for under 
his very nose, and then neglect the proper precaution and 
preventive to waste, by omitting to cover up and take care 
of whatever paint may be remaining after the job is fin- 
ished. Now, a quarter part of the time and labor neces- 
sarily expended in saving the shilling, devoted to care and 
cleanliness, would have resulted in the saving of twice that 
amount. Another absurdity : a slavish devotion to names. 
When will men learn that two things are not necessarily 
the same, because they may be called by similar names ? 
Take, for example, the greens used in carriage-painting. 
These are either chrome or copper greens, and are briefly 
'described in the foregoing pages. The docly greens are 



236 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

chrome colors and the diaphanous greens are copper colors, 
as a rule. Chrome-green, when pure, is of a dense body 
(almost, in this respect, rivaling lampblack), and covers 
and conceals all it touches, whether white or black. A 
fair selling price of this pure green, dry, would be about 
eighty cents per pound to consumers, and at this price it 
would be the cheapest green obtainable. Yet the proba- 
bilities are that a pound of this color, under its own proper 
name, can not be found in any carriage-shop in the United 
States. What, then, do we buy ? Listen ! The so-called 
*^ chrome-green" of commerce is simply silica, sulphate of 
baryta, or carbonate of lime, colored with chrome-green, 
in proportions varying from (the best), say, one pound of 
color to five pounds of the base, to one pound of color and 
two hundred pounds of the base ; and all is sold as chrome- 
green ! Now, this earthy base, which is transparent when 
mixed in oils, adds to the value of paint in the same man- 
ner and degree as watering milk, sanding sugar, or mixing 
shoddy with wool in the production of cloth, adds to the 
value of these articles respectively. What the painter re- 
quires is color, not sand ! And, considering that he has to 
pay vastly more for the color he buys when mixed ivith the 
sand, it would seem not to require a very elaborate argu- 
ment to convince the dullest comprehension that for the 
consumer pure colors are the cheapest. Some idea of the 
coloring property or power of real chrome-green may be 
had by reflecting on the fact that a single pound of it will 
impart its tone of color to a hundred pounds of a glassy, 
translucent substance, causing it "in the mass" to resem- 



ADULTERATION AND WASTE. 237 

ble the pure green itself. I say "in the mass," for when 
this pretended green paint is spread upon a piece of glass, 
and viewed through a microscope or magnifying-glass, it 
presents the appearance of vitreous minute grains, with a 
speck of color here and there, like small sea-birds scattered 
along a sandy beach. That a painter had better buy the 
color unmixed with the sand, would seem a self-evident 
proposition. 

Dropping casually into a carriage paint-shop, not long 
ago, we espied a can, with a label on it, signifying that it 
(the can) did contain, or had contained, ivory-black in 
japan. It was uncovered, and exposed to the dust, dirt, 
and drying influences of a warm atmosphere. We looked 
into it, and found it contained about two thirds of its origi- 
nal contents ; but of its original value not a fifteenth part 
was there. One after another of the " hands," in want 
of a little black, had dipped into it with the palette-knife, 
and the deep pits or holes were left, unfilled, to dry around 
the sides, and thus waste the material in the speediest 
possible manner. We asked the foreman how he was 
suited with these goods. "Oh!" said he, "the black is 
first rate, hut it dries up so ! " We thought, if it did not 
dry under such treatment as that, it would well deserve 
any amount of maledictions. 

The utmost care and attention, and the most scru- 
I pulous cleanliness, are indispensable to economy and good 
results in the carriage paint-shop. 



CHAPTER XL. 

THE USE OF EEADY-GKOUJSTD COLORS. 

The extreme adulteration of paints, wliich has of late 
years become so great an evil as to work out its own 
cure, has not wholly grown out of a disposition on the part 
of the manufacturer to secure immoderate profits. The 
consumer has been most to blame, because of the ready 
credence he has given to the promises of needy and un- 
scrupulous sellers, who have promised to give him more 
for his money than it is worth. It would seem almost 
beyond belief that a coach-painter would risk spoiling a job 
in the hope of saving a half-dollar on a gallon of varnish ! 
Would such a case be a novelty ? The adulteration of 
paints is so difficult of detection as to make the practice 
of it easy and comparatively safe. Take, for example, the 
article of carmine. In a color so expensive as this, a 
small percentage of adulteration makes a material reduc- 
tion in the cost. A single ounce in a pound of this expen- 
sive color would afford a larger profit to the seller than is 
usually realized by those who sell it pure at first hands. 
Nor could this be detected, in using, by the most skillful 



THE USE OF HEADY- GROUND COLORS. 239 

and practiced painter. The clieat would be revealed only 
by the untimely fading of the color, and that would be too 
late to remedy the evil. In carriage-painting, immediate 
effects are less important than remote consequences. 

The colors referred to are prepared expressly for use in 
carriage- work, and with reference only to the requirements 
of the trade. They are finer than it is possible to make 
them in the paint-shop, for the reason that a specialty is 
made of this business with means and appliances which do 
not exist in the paint-shop. To illustrate the convenience 
of these colors, suppose a case : Two or three new spokes in 
an old wheel are to be painted. The time necessary to pre- 
pare the paint from dry materials would be more than suffi- 
cient to match, paint, stripe, and varnish, with colors ready 
at hand. Or, suppose an old carriage to be revarnished. 
The color is mixed to match on the stone, and afterward run 
through the mill. In the grinding process the color has 
changed, and is no longer a match. This may not be dis- 
covered until the application of varnish ; perhaps not even 
until the job is completed and placed in a stronger light. 
The result is general dissatisfaction ; but, suppose it to have 
been discovered in the process of grinding, the change in- 
volves an addition of various colors : one after another is 
added, and with loss of time, to say nothing of loss of pa- 
tience ; the result is, a quantity of paint sufficient to paint 
two carriage-parts, which, of course, is almost worthless for 
other work, and finds its way into the waste- or slush-tub, 
as it is not very elegantly termed, in the paint-shop. Had 
ground colors been on hand, the match could have been 



240 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

made in one quarter the time and with one quarter the 
stock, and the saving would have been both in time and 
material, and the danger avoided of mismatching the color 
in the process of grinding. 

It may be said that a thoroughgoing, practical painter 
does not make such mistakes ; but such work is not always 
done by that style of workmen. It is often intrusted to 
boys and other persons of immature judgment ; and, in 
spite of all that may be said, such mistakes do happen in 
the best-regulated shops. Suppose another case : A new 
body is ready for color — an ordered job — j^i'O^^ised on a cer- 
tain day. Time is limited, and a mistake now is little less 
than a crime. The paint-shop is short of hands. The fore- 
man, driven with other work, finds just time to mix the 
black on the stone, put it into the mill, turn the screw, and 
give pressure enough to insure moderately fine color. The 
day is a hot one. The crank turns slowly under the hands 
of the perspiring juvenile, who, like Mantilini, feels his life 
to be ^^ one demnition grind." Tired and disgusted — ^not 
appreciating the importance of fine colors — he gives the 
thumb-screw a half turn, and, presto ! the crank goes to a 
lively tune, the color comes out in no stinted quantity, and 
soon the task is at an end. Leaving the mill, which he 
neglects to clean, and the pot of half-ground color, and 
feeling himself entitled to a half-hour's recreation in re- 
ward for his industry and perseverance, he disappears, and 
the foreman comes from the varnish-room with just enough 
of daylight left to color the body. The application of a 
single brushful of the paint informs him that in fineness it 



THE USE OE HE ABY-G ROUND COLORS. 241 

is equal to No. 2 saud-paper ; but there is no time to grind 
a fresh lot, and tlie cup of thin color could not be made fine 
in a week. So the boy, being foujid, is presented with a 
coat of — well, not blessings ! The body, unpainted, stands 
till next day ; or, being smalied, the surface requires an 
extra coat of rubbing- varnish to present a respectable ap- 
pearance. Do not such accidents frequently occur in the 
paint-shop ? Ground colors offer a remedy, sure, safe, and 
economical, for all these complaints. Try them, and be 
convinced. 

These colors should come into general use, not only 
because they are finer than any other colors, but because 
they v/ork more freely, flat more perfectly, and dry more 
readily than any others. After conversing with more than 
five Mindred painters as to the cost of grinding colors in 
the shop — the extremes in the estimates given being thirty 
cents as the minimum and one dollar as the maximum 
average cost for labor alone, and a waste of from ten to 
fifteen per cent. — we think Ave may aver that prepared 
colors, on tlie score of economy alone, to say nothing of 
all the other advantages, are worthy the attention of all 
who buy and use paint. 

11 



CHAPTER XLI. 

HOW TO MAKE THE BEST JOB IN BLACK. 

A PUKE black is, in theory, the absence of all the pri- 
mary colors and of the extreme color, white. The presence 
of any one of these detracts from the entireness of black. 
So, when black is viewed through any colored medium, it 
ceases to be pure black, and assumes that tone of color 
which would result from mixing the color of the medium 
with the black. For example : black, when viewed through 
a medium of yellowish varnish, reflects, however slightly, a 
greenish hue ; and, the greater the number of coats of clear 
varnish, the greater will be the detraction from the purity 
of the black. So with white : a single thin coat of the 
palest varnish over a coat of pure white detracts slightly 
from its purity ; but successive coats of the most color- 
less varnish destroy the whiteness, and the surface reflects 
more or less of impure yellowish light. The same may be 
said of all the primary and secondary colors. Some of the 
mixed and broken colors would be improved, on the con- 
trary, by a coating of yellowish translucent medium, as yel- 
low-lake over drab, or over a mixed green. In avoidance 



HOW TO MAKE THE BEST JOB IN BLACK. 243 

of these accidents, and in order to secure the best results 
possible in carriage-painting, we suggest the application of 
only one coat of clear varnish, and that, of course, the last 
one. We believe that the best work turned out of any city 
establishment is finished without a single coat of clear 
color (we speak now more particularly of glazing jobs), and 
with but one coat of clear varnish. In carmine and the 
lakes, the first coat on the ground is put on in varnish, and 
every coat up to the last is colored. In this way a depth 
of color is obtained which can be had by no other process. 
It should be borne in mind that the opaque or body colors 
do not compare in beauty and brilliancy with the trans- 
parent colors ; and, as a rule, the colors are beautiful in 
proportion as they are transparent : for examples, ultra- 
marine-blue, carmine, emerald-green, scarlet and crimson 
lakes, etc. All are familiar with the beautiful colors re- 
flected from the vases placed in the windows of apothecary- 
shops. This results from the depth of colored fluid. A 
thin, flat glass vessel would not reflect such hues, though 
filled with the same substance. The principle is the same 
in carriage-painting : to show the best possible colors, the 
light must be reflected, not from a flat, opaque surface, but 
from a surface which has beneath it a depth of continuous 
colored particles reaching way down through the succes- 
sive coats of varnish to the groundwork. To be sure, this < 
mode of proceeding is expensive, both in labor and mate- 
rial ; but who ever gained a good thing without working for 
it ? Black should be. put on in one coat of clear, flat color ; 
after that, every coat of varnish should contain more or 



244 HOUSE AND CARRIAGE PAINTING, AND GRAINING. 

less of the same black as used for the first coat, up to the 
finishing-coat, which should be clear varnish. In this mode 
the black holds its color, and does not take on the greenish 
tinge which otherwise it is impossible to avoid. All work, 
of course, is good or bad only by comparison. Any car- 
riage is black enough in a dark night, and almost any toler- 
ably good black looks well enough when viewed ^jcr se. It 
is only when placed in comparison with the best, that its 
inferiority is apparent ; and men who strive to excel in 
their productions are not content to occupy inferior posi- 
tions in any particular. *' Excelsior ! " is a good motto 
for coach-painters. 



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